
Glass. 
Book, 






/ 



FROM 

BOOKSTORE, 

49 6^ Avenue, N.\ 



f <r 



PAPERS FOR THOUGHTFUL 
GIRLS. 



<£**£> 



' "■'r_Ljj-iJi r.il irm ' j 




"OUR SISTER GRIZEL." 



Ti 



APERS FOR 1 HOUGHTFUL 



G 



IRLS 



WITH ILLUSTRATIVE SKETCHES OF 
SOME GIRLS' LIVES. 



By SARAH TYTLER. , 



With Illustrations by J. E. Millais. 




BOSTON: 
CROSBY AND NICHOLS. 

NEW YORK: O. S. FELT. 
1864. 



% 



<s* 



& 



Is 



:' 



University Press: 

Welch, Bigelow, and Company, 

Cambridge. 






IN MEMORY OF 

MARY 

MY SISTER AND FRIEND 



IN LOVE AND GRIEF 
AND HOPE. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I. YOUTH i 

Our Sister Grizel 6 



II. INTELLECT 21 

What became of Pen? . . . . 31 

III. BEAUTY . . . . . . . .61 

The Beauties ...... 71 

IV. FAVOR 89 

" Wandering Darling" .... 98 

V. AMBITION 130 

A Dream of Honor 139 

VI. PLEASURE 154 

A Leaf from a Diary . . . . 164 

VII. FRIENDSHIP . . • . . . .173 

Dame Dorothy 180 

VIII. LOVE 198 

A Tale of True Love .... 207 



vi Contents. 

IX GODLINESS 230 

Miss Viol 239 

X. KINDLINESS 250 

Nurnberg Eggs 255 

XL FASHION . 282 

French Dolls 290 

XII. THE LIFE OF PRIDE AND LEVITY . 306 

The Rooms in the Old House. — The First 

Room 311 

XIII. THE LIFE OF SENSE AND HEAVINESS 315 

The Second Room 318 

XIV. THE LIFE OF SARCASM AND BITTERNESS 325 

The Third Room 329 

XV. CONSOLATIONS 335 




I. 



YOUTH. 




HERE is no greater mistake than to suppose 
that youth is necessarily the choice period, 
the green spot of life. To some it has not 
even the buoyancy and light-heartedness 
which is its ordinary portion. To not a few, cares 
and trials come while the frame is yet in its fresh vigor, 
and the eyes are sparkling with their first bold, blithe 
look-out on the world. To almost all, youth is a power 
which hurries them to its goal ; the young heart is " hot 
and restless " ; it will not take time to appreciate its 
treasures ; it will not be satisfied with its goodly posses- 
sion; it is full of uncertain desires, and wayward inclina- 
tions, and passionate impulses ; it is grasping and strain- 
ing and striving after a vague, uncomprehended good, 
an airy or ornate, ill-proportioned ideal ; it is troubled 
with its ignorance of its own destiny, its unresolved will, 
its undeveloped circumstances. Youth is not often the 
cycle of peace. Do not fear, then, young girls, to 
leave behind you the gayly-jested-over or mincingly- 
mentioned epoch of your teens. Do not dread grow- 



2 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

ing graver or even stouter. With ripe womanhood, 
and the still, mellow decline of life, are won, and 
often and often only then won, rest, power, wisdom, 
content. There may be a great garner in store for 
your future, there will be an abundant harvest if you 
will but sow in grace. It is a half pagan, and wholly 
untrue notion, to associate all blessedness of existence 
with rash, heady, crude youth. Fight the fight and run 
the race, and the older you grow the more royally you 
will prove the conqueror, and the grander will prove 
your prize. 

But the important question now is, how to employ 
this youth so as to make of its notes some of the sweet- 
est and gladdest of the melody which began softly in 
the cradle, and which, if not drowned in the clang and 
discord of idol music, and devil worship, should swell 
until it joins the chorus of the skies. The writer sup- 
poses herself speaking to those who are very weak, very 
unstable, very erring, very imperfect, as she is ; but 
who are in earnest, as even girls can be in earnest, 
about Christianity and their duty ; who would con their 
lesson, and practise their calling humbly, modestly, per- 
severingly to the end. She is aware from experience 
that not a tithe of girls of a contrary spirit would listen 
to her, even from curiosity; and they do not conse- 
quently come within the scope of her argument. Only 
to them she would say, once and for all, solemnly, 
wistfully, and affectionately, it is a piteous sentence 
which they are preparing to pass on themselves, — to 
refuse to come to the Father for life, the Elder Brother 
for love, the Holy Spirit for light. Idleness, disobedi- 



Youth. 3 

ence, and rebellion, unless great mercy interpose, must 
sow the wind to reap the whirlwind. 

" I do not know what I shall do with myself after I 
leave school," says many a good girl, doubtfully and 
regretfully. She need not be ashamed of the difficulty ; 
her position is a problem of the present day. How to 
train the faculties of women, to gather up and employ 
their energies ; how to provide for them a quiet and 
noble sphere, at once consistent with their dependence 
and their dignity ; how to furnish with suitable objects 
the disengaged capacities and activities of mature single 
women, are considerations engaging a host of the great 
and good, — enough with a blessing to bring women's 
affairs to a happy issue. The solution is not found, 
but it may not be distant. The difficulties run in this 
direction : — Shall the girl return to the pickling and 
preserving, the herb -gathering and doctoring, the primi- 
tive housewifery and seamstresship of her great-grand- 
mother 1 Shall the Protestant girl borrow a lesson from 
Catholic humanity, and, while she abjures asceticism, 
enthusiasm, and unnatural vows, become a deaconess 
instead of a sister of charity, have her' role regularly 
laid, down, of teaching the ignorant, nursing the sick, 
feeding the hungry, and clothing the naked % Or, shall 
she discover her bent like a boy, pursue her profession 
fearlessly and innocently, achieve independence, and 
from her own lawful earnings endow and cheer her own 
dear home, and let the rays from that centre of love 
and charity stream forth on every poor, stinted, bur- 
dened, desolate home on earth % Probably the solution 
lies in a union of the whole three : in domesticity, 



4 Papers for Thoughtful Girls, 

alms-deeds, and independence, woven into a Christian 

crown. 

But while thoughtful men are pondering women's 
questions, let girls remember that women themselves 
have labored to impress upon them that the "woman's 
head is the man." Let them not forget that the great 
Apostle would not suffer women to usurp authority ; 
that at fathers' and brothers' and husbands' feet they 
should sit so loyally and willingly, resting their heads 
on their knees, taking them as their masters, — the 
representatives of the Great Master, — and learning 
of them the truth in submission. 

Let girls especially, while conflicting opinions are 
at work, think more of their duties than their rights. 
Woman's rights ! Foolish women have made the words 
a scandal in the ears of the community. True and 
tender women in their integrity and delicacy have re- 
volted at the term, and avowed they had enough, they 
had what they would, they were satisfied, they felt their 
lots were in their own keeping ; they would have none 
of such bold, boisterous, bragging advocacy. They 
sympathized with good old Mrs. Grant of Laggan, 
when she wrote, "I have no ambition to hear the 
modern belles declare their ' dark sayings on the harp,' 
till such time as I am convinced that they stay more 
at home, have less vanity, and make better wives and 
daughters than formerly." 

It is a great fact, that under Providence a girl's lot is 
comparatively in her own hands. She may not have 
the clearness, the conviction, or the satisfaction which 
she might enjoy from a direct road in life plainly set 



Youth. 5 

before her, and a busy heart, head, and hand improving 
its rough places and its smooth ; she may sigh, long, 
pray, after what would be at once greater guidance and 
greater freedom ; but all things that are essential to her 
safety and happiness are hers. When her poor little 
head is puzzled with doubts and distractions, when her 
brothers and cousins laugh at her wants and distresses, 
and tell her that a woman should only be ornamental, 
that the more useless she is the more she is answering 
their sense of fitness, that a strong-minded woman is an 
anomaly, and therefore the weaker-minded she proves 
the better for her and every one connected with her ; 
when one friend is all for meditation and endurance, 
and another for reform and activity ; when one speaks 
out her experience, and another veils it to her last 
breath, — let the little one escape from the labyrinth 
by thinking not of herself, by doing what is nearest 
and simplest to her hand, by living as much as possible 
in the well-being of others. The intricacies of artificial 
life will never entangle and confound her more than 
she is able to bear. The ram has been caught in the 
thicket that will atone for her errors, as well as for 
her sins. If it be the Divine will that compulsory 
waiting and irregular working, which men so largely 
ordain for women, should last as long as the universe, 
if actually the rule is irreversible and unavoidable, and 
men are as innocent of it as women themselves, never- 
theless let her lift up her head, for her redemption 
draweth nigh. 

The secret of happiness here and hereafter, the gold 
thread of youth, lies in loving God and loving our 



6 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

neighbor, loving them early if it be yet possible, loving 
them well ; losing one's own life in theirs, becoming 
guileless and docile, meek and reverent in our inter- 
course with them, loving them long, yea, forever. 
These Papers are written with a diffident but yearning 
wish to aid young girls in their aim at so lofty and 
beautiful a purpose. They are intended to steady 
their views, to comfort and confirm them, to help 
them in trying to contemplate by the broad light of 
God and the Gospel, some of the things which are 
before them. These things consist of those gifts and 
faculties (in which youth is included) which necessarily 
and inevitably occupy much of their notice ; those 
pursuits which form part of the nurture and growth 
of the soul ; those stumbling-blocks which beset their 
road ; those encouragements which will enable them 
to lift holy hands, without wrath or doubting, which 
will preserve them our own bright, trusting, eager, 
joyous young people, till God shall please to lay 
upon them the responsibilities and the labors of more 
advanced years. 



OUR SISTER GRIZEL. 

TWO hundred years ago, down in the south of Scot- 
land, stood an old turreted house, the home of a 
county family of rank and consequence. It was a grim 
enough dwelling, nevertheless, with slits of windows, 
high, steep roof, and low, battered door. The pleasure- 
ground was limited to a neglected herb-garden, which 



Youth. 7 

closely adjoined the churchyard of a homely little parish 
church, so that the farm-yard and poultry-yard presented 
the liveliest attractions of the policies. The whole aspect 
of the house was bleak ; and within its damp-stained 
lichened walls reigned strict discipline, heavily over- 
clouded by family reverses, troubles, and dangers. It 
was a hard home for a fanciful young girl, yet here was 
born, grew, and flourished our sister Grizel. The chill 
east wind swept blightingly around her, and pinched 
the very elder-bush by the kirkyard wall, but she and 
the blue-bells flourished notwithstanding. Her diet of 
catechism and unquestioning obedience was as ample 
as her diet of cake and pudding was scant, but she 
throve upon them both, grew up straight-backed and 
open-faced, and sang as she span at her wheel. Fortu- 
nately for her, she was not the only child of engrossed 
parents, nor the only charge of those stern, rough, but, 
upon the whole, not unkind servants. She had many 
brothers and sisters, and probably they were her benign 
safeguards against austerity and fanaticism ; yet it is 
wellnigh impossible to imagine Grizel growing up mor- 
bid and harsh under any circumstances. If all our 
girls were but as hardy and affectionate as her ! In 
these two qualities, quite as much as in her tender 
imagination, lay her double success. Which of our 
girls has a home so barren of comfort, indulgence, 
and sprightliness, so burdened with sorrow as hers] 
And yet her youth, like her age, was bountiful in 
benevolence and joy. 

We warrant Grizel rose with the lark, and like the 
lark was made glad by the mere stinging freshness of 



8 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

the early morning. She did not grudge her morning 
prayers, she only grieved that she was not always so 
hearty in her petitions as she should have been. In 
order to relieve her weary, downcast mother, she pre- 
sided over the thin porridge and blue milk, for even in 
the country mansion the distress was so great that the 
daily provisions were scarce. She dispensed the doles 
with the most upright exactness, soundly cuffed the 
little brother who helped himself to an additional 
spoonful without her permission, but took the infant 
sister in her lap and fed her out of her own dish. 
How pretty it was to see Grizel, in the flaxen-haired, 
bright-cheeked fairness and bloom of her twelve or 
thirteen summers, holding the year-old child, coaxing 
it to open its cherry of a mouth, slowly and carefully 
shovelling in the portion of well-mixed porridge and 
milk, and drumming the baby triumphantly on the 
back with the handle of the spoon when the spoonful 
was over, in all the skilled ease and pleasure of a 
motherly nurse of fifty. But do you think that break- 
fast was Grizel's most important duty, or that her 
lessons, and her spinning, and her attempts at house- 
hold economy, and exercises at cantering her pony 
under some laird's Jock, were the limits of her obliga- 
tions? A world wide of it. Never young girl had a 
more difficult part to play. In addition to sums in 
arithmetic, no longer theory but practice, and secrets 
which might have caused middle-aged heads to grow 
gray, little, sensible, spirited Grizel was trusted with 
feats of diplomacy which would have baffled wary, 
crafty statesmen. 



Youth. 9 

The political and religious disorder and misery of 
the time were very great. Grizel' s parents were of the 
protesting, Covenanting party. Her father had been 
rash, and had anticipated the national constitutional 
rising which called in the Prince of Orange ; he had 
aided and abetted, and shown his person in an in- 
effectual northern landing. He was pursued as a rebel, 
while he lay in hiding, cooped up in cramps and cold 
behind the false boarding of a room in his own house ; 
and at one time he was driven to the dreadful chill and 
gloom of the family burial-vault in the neighboring 
kirkyard. All this while the soldiers — the dreadful 
"red-coats" of the enemy — were perforce quartered 
on the family, and shared their stinted meals. Grizel 
was not only cognizant of these facts, but she was em- 
ployed as the chief agent in managing their complicated 
machinery. It is passing strange to us how the girl 
managed ; how she contrived to carry food and comfort 
to her father, who depended upon her principally both 
for meat and cheer ; how she eluded the vigilance, and 
diverted the attention of the soldiers. It is said she 
propitiated them, and what this amounted to you will 
know when you reflect that your bailiff of modern days, 
with his bad name for harshness and coarseness, is a 
mild, fine gentleman contrasted with the drinking, di- 
cing cursing soldier of Charles the Second's era. It is 
impossible to suppose that these bearded, gross, violent 
men could have been other than good-humored and 
obliging to the child, or else she would never have 
effected her purpose. The truth was, Grizel had a 
dash of Jenny Denison in her character ; the bright, 



io Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

bold, fearless little girl was an innocent coquette. She 
had ample sympathies and fine discrimination. She 
could understand something of the original constitution 
of these bluff soldiers ; she had a lurking admiration 
for their manliness, befouled as it was with sin. She 
instinctively seized on what was left of truth and kind- 
ness in those case-hardened, corrupted hearts. And 
the rude, depraved men were won by the little mistress 
who was not frightened at them, who burst out laugh- 
ing in their faces at any incongruity in the quantity of 
meat she first heaped upon her plate and then slipped 
into her apron. They knew her and spoke of her 
among themselves as the little greedy wench, who 
drank their healths (young sprig of Presbyterianism as 
she was) over the hall-table ; who stopped and asked 
them of their campaigns as they cleaned their belts 
and burnished their buckles, whistling round the front- 
door; and who even sat on the kirkyard wall, and 
sang to them her country songs. Grizel was always 
famous for her songs. If our girls could sing like her, 
they would wile the bird from the tree. 

There are very contradictory opinions rife of Grizel's 
father. Probably he was a passionate man hard pressed ; 
he certainly was one of the plotters of his generation. 
He had small scruple in making use of his little Grizel. 
He not only availed himself of her wit and energy in 
procuring the supply of his daily wants, but he de- 
spatched her on his difficult and dangerous errands. 
One can fancy that Grizel might have had little enough 
intercourse with her turbulent, stout Presbyterian father 
before his adversity. But when he lurked a sorry pris- 



Youth. 1 1 

oner where he had ruled with a high hand ; when there 
were no more stir and strong excitement for him, but 
he had to endure the dismal blank of a helpless and 
wellnigh hopeless captivity, then he must have turned 
to bright Grizel, watched for her light step, listened to 
her prattle of her strategies, laughed his low, short 
laugh at her pranks, gradually talked with her of his 
straits as to an older person, trusted her with his des- 
perate projects, and thought when she left him again in 
silence and shade, what a clever lass she was, how duti- 
ful and devoted, not falling behind her poor, broken- 
spirited mother one straw's-breadth. He must have 
wondered, with long sighs, if he would ever reach those 
low countries of which he talked, and sail with Grizel 
in those queer, flat-bottomed boats with the gay houses 
on their decks, or sit smoking at the windows where 
the fresh waving trees shaded the dusty streets, with her 
to fill his pipe, and amuse him with her quick, shrewd 
observations on the passers-by. 

I cannot think that Grizel passed through the kirk- 
yard in the mirk without sore struggles. Her very live- 
liness was an earnest of her imagination, and she was 
not a girl of the nineteenth century. The Will-o'-the- 
Wisp spunkie had grotesque goblin terrors for her ; 
corpse-candles like death-speals turned her blue, — not 
fire, nor robbers, nor mad dogs could be more appall- 
ing. She was a religiously nurtured child, but her 
belief was, that in God's great universe more was 
permitted than philosophers dreamt of. 

Winking and stumbling over the gravestones, Grizel's 
quaking heart was so awed and oppressed with dim 



1 2 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

supernatural fear, that the very barking of the house- 
dogs was a relief to her. But the barking of the collies 
was likely to arouse the hardened, profane soldiers, so 
she had to send a special prayer to the minister to 
keep his dogs quiet. It was well they were quieted 
too, for they disturbed her mother's rest, as she lay sick 
and faint on her ancient silk-hung bed beneath her 
lozenged quilt \ and they also disturbed other rest than 
her mother's, even her father's, Sir Patrick, lying wrapped 
in his horse-cloak and blankets, ill protected from the 
dank vapors of the family vault, where he was trying 
his hand at Latin psalms, to while away the time, as 
well as to lay the spirits of his ancestors. 

With her open brow bathed in sweat, and her sensi- 
tive flesh creeping, creeping, Grizel went on her loyal 
errand to her father's hiding-place. Assuredly good 
angels watched over her, and neither gliding ghost nor 
mocking imp harmed her. I can compare her to none 
save the truest of ballad heroines, young Janet, who 
won her lover, Tarn Lane, from the false kingdom of 
the fairies. 

Sir Patrick did not hesitate on a point or two. Once, 
on a push, he made Grizel be forwarded as the bearer 
of a letter to his fellow-rebel and fellow-sufferer, Baillie 
of Jerviswoode, lying in Edinburgh Tolbooth. No 
doubt the occasion was an urgent one ; but think of 
Grizel entering the low-browed, iron-studded doors of 
the old Heart of Mid-Lothian, with the knowledge of 
high treason perilling her father's head, and weighing 
like lead on her heart ; think of her stumbling in her 
old-fashioned sacque and screen, with her crop of flax- 



Youth. 1 3 

en hair standing on end with sheer terror, — stumbling 
along those dismal passages and by the barred windows 
after the gruff, impatient turnkey, who rattled his huge 
keys, quite dead to the playful wiles which mellowed 
the lazy roystering soldiers ! Think of Grizel in the 
cell where Baillie sat in his soiled coat and crushed 
cravat, spelling out his Bible in the dim light, and men- 
tally calculating what was like to be his short progress 
between the jail and the Grassmarket ! A marvel that 
the carrier-pigeon did not drop at his feet. 

Jerviswoode must have reckoned his friend at a loss 
for a servant, but, with many a deep groan and angry 
ejaculation, he read the letter, in its barbarous cipher, 
" sent with speed and care by a trusty hand," and re- 
quiring an answer to be lodged in the same innocent 
keeping. 

Another than old Jerviswoode, despondent and dis- 
pleased, stared at Grizel as at a world's wonder. His 
son George, a lad of twenty and odds, looked so stead- 
fastly at the brave, intelligent face, cowed as it then 
presented itself, that he remembered years after, across 
the seas, with what reluctant, pitiful eyes the child 
looked on his father's disgrace ; with what implicit con- 
fidence she placed her hand in his, the hand still rough, 
red, and chubby in its child's roughness, the hand that 
still swung bags and baskets and watering-pans, and 
flung stones and flourished sticks in games with little 
brothers, at putting the stone and shinty, — still a boy- 
ish hand even in its feminine roundness. He remem- 
bered how she grasped his long fingers with a boy's 
frankness all the way back through the prison courts 



14 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

and passages, and how she told him, as he lifted her on 
to the big-boned horse at the gate, " the bear was in 
braird down at Redbraes." The sentence sounded as 
if she were eager to shut her eyes on this black, beet- 
ling, noisy, inhospitable town, and shut out with it all 
thoughts of men's scrapes and men's rage and anguish, 
and open them on the green fields of her years and 
sex. 

I would divide Grizel's life into separate panels, and 
paint them in outline copies of the full and beautiful 
original. It seems she was the chief stay of the poor 
exiled family, when they escaped to a ship, stole abroad 
in disguise, and found refuge in a foreign country \ and 
when the old household were living in comparative 
security and peace, but in dulness, economy, and toil, 
among the storks and frogs, fat burghers and fair Vrows 
of Holland. The dame her mother comes out confess- 
edly a woman, pure and tender in her weakness, but 
essentially weak and dependent on the activity and en- 
durance of others. So does the fair, gifted sister Chris- 
tina, whom Grizel loved well, but with regard to whom 
she lets it be seen that she was sometimes vexed, be- 
cause Christina would sit up with her books and musi- 
cal instrument, dreaming in her genius, doated on by 
her parents, while she was left to labor alone for the 
common benefit, unnoticed and disregarded. Girls 
must be prepared for these silent contrasts, harder 
and more trying than many a spoken grievance. But 
while stern justice would summarily put an end to 
them, declaring that Christina ought to have descend- 
ed from her heights and trod with her shrinking feet 



Youth. 1 5 

among the thorns and mire, Grizel herself saves us from 
this harshness. With large-hearted candor and many- 
sided charity, she shames us by slaying for this sister as 
well as for the rest. 

When God, merciful in the day of his visitation, took 
Christina the darling, and left Grizel the drudge, the 
blow struck not the parents so much as poor Grizel to 
the earth. It caused the dauntless, indefatigable child, 
the good fairy, the sweet singer of her own songs, to 
crouch, sobbing, on her knees. " But the death of her 
friends was always a load too heavy for her," said Gri- 
zel' s daughter, speaking long afterwards of her mother's 
usually buoyant spirit and energetic will. No wonder, 
Grizel ! What could faithful affection, acute wit, un- 
flinching fortitude, work against the last enemy % All 
baffled, all lost there. When the yellow fogs travelled 
on sluggish wings across the damp flats of Holland, 
and suddenly seized with a chill, tight hand the " little 
neck " of your dear sister, — that sister who clasped 
hands with you, gazing with thoughtful eyes on the 
strange flax-fields, orchards, tileries, and tulip-beds, and 
comparing them of nights with the broomy braes and 
hazel dens of the Scotland she would never see again, 
— when the cold, relentless grasp wrung out the young, 
swelling, budding life in a few gasps and spasms of 
mortal agony, then you sank powerless as the dead be- 
fore you. You did not wail nor cry; you had even 
feeble flitting visions of submission and resignation 
piercing the thick pall; for you were a godly child, 
who had striven to order your conversation aright, and 
had offered God thanks and praise in many a joyous 



1 6 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

time that was gone by. But tenacious natures like 
yours, though sanctified by grace, will weep tears of 
blood ere they can relinquish their treasures. You 
passed through the fiery trial, and your life blossomed 
anew ; but one fibre of your warm heart stretched 
away from that time to the glorious holy heavens ; one 
pulse throbbed with patient but wistful throbs for en- 
trance into the pure ranks above ; for renewed com- 
munion with one who had grown wise with a guileless 
but ineffable wisdom, and tender with an inexhaustible 
tenderness. 

Grizel was a poet, too, and I suspect a stronger, 
sweeter poet than Christina, who has melted away 
without other record than the unequal balance of con- 
temporary admiration. Hers must have been simple, 
spontaneous authorship, from fulness of the heart and 
love of the work, — composing her songs and singing 
them to lighten the load of her incessant avocations. 
To give you an idea of what these included, I quote 
a competent authority : " She went to the market, went 
to the mill to have their own corn ground (which it 
seems is the way with good managers), dressed the lin- 
en, cleaned the house, made ready the dinner, mended 
the children's stockings and other clothes, and made 
what she could for them ; and, in short, did everything." 
On another occasion the same writer mentions that Gri- 
zel would sit up for whole nights to work lace ruffles, 
in which her brother Patrick might show himself among 
his fellows. To suppose this wonderful catalogue was 
accomplished without great bodily exertion, considera- 
ble worry of mind, and occasional crossness of temper, 



Youth. 1 7 

even in a notable woman, is impossible. Indeed, I am 
bound to state it is my private opinion that Grizel rather 
overdid the thing, and insisted on being always the 
working horse in the family cart; an injudicious ar- 
rangement, which not only offered temptations to others, 
but must now and then have impaired the peace and 
prosperity of the household vehicle. But it was a noble 
fault in a noble character, and so she was often in tune 
to sing heartily as she worked, to carol like a morning 
lark while she sat up into the small hours. She was 
fired by the womanly affectionate ambition, dear heart, 
to work the lace in which her brother might ruffle with 
the best of the Scotch gentlemen, and not disgrace the 
name he bore, or smother his own comeliness. It is 
my impression the young laird took her offerings to his 
manhood very sensibly, and wondered the lace was not 
finer and stiffer, and that sister Grizel' s devotion, which' 
was so much a matter of course, did not perform still 
more shining miracles. But I can fancy the same laird, 
when he was no longer young but old, looking back 
wistfully on these very ruffles and their worker, calling 
himself an ungrateful lover, and reflecting somewhat 
ruefully on the value of the treasure which passed away 
from their house when they wedded Grizzie to long 
Geordie Baillie. In truth, what a maiden aunt Grizel 
would have been, what a grand-aunt, what a single lady 
with a lass and a lantern for her bodyguard by day 
and by night. In one or two senses, Grizel was lost 
to the Humes and to posterity by becoming a wife and 
mother. 

There was a great gathering of douce Scotch folk 



1 8 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

in that Dutch town-hall where Sir George Baillie was 
troth-plighted to Grizel Hume. They were exiles ; but 
the dry Scotch humor, the broad flashes of a strong 
race's hilarity, rose refreshed and shone forth in com- 
pliment to the occasion. If the troubles continued, 
the plenishing would have been but poor, the house- 
keeping arranged on the most rigid principles of Scotch 
thrift ; but do you think for a moment such trifles 
could dismay Grizel ? She has left to us the song which, 
in the character of a shepherdess, she sang to the 
accompaniment of a cracked harpsichord, while enam- 
ored Sir George stood by her side, leaning against the 
great Dutch clock, — its moon of a face encircled with 
a full-blown wreath of convolvulus and roses. 

' ' Though our toom purse had barely twa bodies to clink, 
And a barley-meal scone were the best in our bink ; 
Yet he wi' his hirsel, and I \vi' my wheel, 
Through the howe o' the year we would fend unco weel." 

With Grizei's betrothal ends her life in the Lowlands 
of Holland, and among the plodding Dutch. William 
of Orange landed in England, and Sir Patrick Hume, 
and young George Baillie, and many another banished 
man, returned to the hillsides and holms of Scotland, 
and their own special haughs and knowes, and gray 
houses, and old folk, bonniest of all. 

In London, or else down at Portsmouth, Grizel was 
wedded to George Baillie, whom she first met in the 
Tolbooth of Edinburgh. She rode off with him to keep 
his house of Jerviswoode, and keep him closest com- 
pany in state or bounty. There are traces of her reign 
at Jerviswoode ; one piquant glimpse of her as a very 



Youth. 1 9 

old lady smiling and watching over the sports of her 
grandchildren ; but among these relics I cannot find 
that she degenerated into the wilfulness and imperious- 
ness, the prejudice and arrogance in which high-spirited 
chatelaines are believed to end their careers. That she 
grazed these evils I no more doubt than that peculiar 
temptations assail peculiar casts of character, but I 
honestly declare that I do not discover these qualities 
prominent in Grizel Baillie the dame, any more than in 
Grizel Hume the maiden. True, George Baillie lived 
long with her, and he is said to have been a capable 
lord and master, but he was taken from her, and she 
was left a widow. Both during George Baillie's life 
and after his death, I maintain Grizel is the same Grizel 
she always was, not overmuch an autocrat and terma- 
gant. While she was still a rejoicing wife and mother, 
she bore her husband's burden with him cheerily, helped 
him ably to order his household and dispense his hos- 
pitality, and tried to tolerate his departures to London, 
to which he was called by the affairs of the Kirk and 
the State. However, with regard to this last cross, I 
noticed that she fretted under it, a rare impulse with 
her ; and so far from being altogether comforted by Sir 
George's delegated authority, she clung to his letters, 
and only forgot her troubles on his return. 

When George Baillie died, Grizel was a sorely af- 
flicted woman, though she had great faith that the part- 
ing was for a short season. You remember the death 
of her friends was always very sore to her, and to me 
there is something endearing in this single instance in 
which the strong heart's elasticity relaxed. Now, a 



20 Papers for Thotightful Girls. 

nearer and dearer than the little sister Christina was 
gone. " He was too good for me," cried very piteously 
she who was so good a daughter, so good a wife and 
mother. 

At last Grizel lies stretched on her own death-bed. 
Here, certainly, peeps out something of far-reaching 
authority and high supremacy. In her last interview 
with her grandsons, she caused, in anticipation of their 
marrying wives, the last chapter of the book of Proverbs 
to be read to them in her hearing. The wizened and 
worn old woman thought to dictate to the young men 
on the subject that thrilled their heart-strings ! Nay, it 
was the venerable mother on the brink of existence 
yearning unselfishly to bestow her counsel on her boys 
with regard to the step which was the most momentous 
in their lives, the step which she best understood, on 
whose text her own history was a commentary. 

The grandsons blest, the old woman turned to the 
wall. " Have you anything to wish for, mother % " 
" Nothing," the old woman said, meekly enough, with 
her faltering tongue, " except that I may be with 
George Baillie in the place to which I am bound \ that 
I may not miss him whom my soul loved, in the many 
mansions of the Father's house," — fitting last words 
of her who was more than a heroine of the Covenant, 
even a loving and loved woman, and whose best me- 
morial still, after all that has been written, is her own 
sweet, quaint songs. 



II. 



INTELLECT. 




ADY Mary Wortley Montague left it as her 
shrewd, caustic, concise opinion that no 
greater obstacle could exist to a girl's pros- 
pects in the world than the reputation of 
talents. Therefore if a victim had the misfortune to 
inherit talents, Lady Mary coolly and craftily advised 
her to hide them as closely as possible. Poor brilliant 
Lady Mary ! The large, liberal spirit which brought to 
her country the benefit of inoculation was cramped, 
withered, and tainted, and none knew better the hol- 
lowness which may attend on wit. Since Lady Mary's 
day, opinions have altered, and standards have changed. 
The dangers which attend intellect in a woman are now 
private and personal ones, with which the world does 
not interfere ; and the blessing of it has been demon- 
strated so honestly and so largely, that now-a-days few 
even require, with Richard Lovel Edge worth, to com- 
bat a good literary Dr. Day's antagonism to a literary 
daughter. 

Still, in one sense, — that of settlement in life by 



22 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

marriage, — the great aim at which Lady Mary pointed, 
— intellect, pure weight and force and refinement of 
mind, apart from all cunning, is rather disadvantageous 
than advantageous to the holder. Assumed the gener- 
ality of men to be of ordinary capacities, of course the 
probability of the woman out of the generality of women 
(that is, of extraordinary capacity) meeting her mate, is 
greatly lessened, although not to the extent that is gen- 
erally supposed. For while she is apt to frame to her- 
self a standard in correspondence with her own facul- 
ties, and to be repelled by the shallow, dull, blunt crowd 
around her, there is, on the other hand, often untold 
magnanimity in a clever woman, — a largeness of heart, 
along with a largeness of head, which acts as an anti- 
dote, and enables her to sink her cleverness to its due 
level. 

" Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever," 

she murmurs. She values manliness, guilelessness, kind- 
ness at its proper price. She marries an upright, sensi- 
ble, stupid, affectionate fellow, and calls him lord and 
master ; and the world laughs ; but she is happy in an 
atmosphere of intensely feminine happiness, deferring 
to him, honoring him, glorifying him with her whole 
moral nature ; and he acquires a dignity he never held 
before, and grows brighter and brighter under her bright- 
ness, is respectable and respected, and even his very 
children conduct themselves to him with a peculiar 
homage, moved by her delicate duty. Enough is not 
said and written of this submission of the mental to the 
moral nature ; this exaltation of virtue, this offering of 



Intellect. 23 

the right hand and bent knee to the true man who loves 
God and his brother, and who, through the great sacri- 
fice and the divine perfection, shall yet reign as a priest 
and a king. German literature has more of this gentle- 
ness. The popular domestic dramas of Princess Amalie 
of Saxony contain specimens of it Dickens and Thack- 
eray have noted it ; and one or two of my readers may 
recollect the gay, quick, pretty heiress who became en- 
amored of Cowper's description of his good, simple- 
minded, rustic kinsman Johnnie. 

Apart from her opportunities of marriage, intellect is 
almost an unmingled boon to a woman, unless it be of 
a very restless, obtrusive, and exacting description, such 
as to deprive her of her natural resources, weaken her 
fellow-feeling with her kind, or offend them by arro- 
gance. These shadows are not uncommon attendants 
on cleverness, but they diminish every day. They rarely 
accompany true ability, but rather its showy counterfeit. 
The reproach of a blue-stocking is becoming obsolete. 
We have no fantastic Anna Sewards, neither have we 
demure Fanny Burneys, elaborately hiding their volumes 
of the " Lives of the Poets," lest they be suspected of 
the pretensions of learned ladies so imposing and alarm- 
ing as Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Montagu. A woman never 
" spouts " now in public ; she is no more extravagantly 
proud of her information, her reflection, her imagina- 
tion, than she is exceedingly ashamed of them. They 
are her inheritance ; a grave, glad inheritance, to be 
used, not abused, never to be sported, and, after all, no 
great rarity. Yet while painters, poets, and- writers in 
general are common enough among women, and mat- 



24 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

ter-of-fact and quiet persons they are, exactly like their 
neighbors, still sagacious, cold Dr. Carlyle of Inveresk 
recorded that universal accomplishments had produced 
a monotony among women, and that he sought in vain, 
in another generation, for the sprightliness and sense so 
much esteemed and so patent in the female circles of 
his young days. He has too good ground for his com- 
plaint. 

Let girls honor and cherish their intellects, laughing 
at those men-novelists who would persuade them that 
they are more interesting and irresistible as maidens 
and matrons, the more ignorant and helpless they can 
continue to linger. Let them arm themselves with the 
weapons left them by King Solomon : " She openeth 
her mouth with wisdom " ; " strength and honor are 
her clothing " ; " she bringeth her food from afar " \ 
" with her own hands she planteth a vineyard " ; " let 
her own works praise her in the gates." Intelligent 
ignorance, very difficult to find now, is fresh and origi- 
nal. Sweetness, candor, tender-heartedness, and all 
goodness, are as incomparably superior to any mere 
mental organism in a woman as they are in a man, but 
the case ends there. A clever good woman is a finer, 
abler being than a stupid good woman, not to say a 
silly good woman. Folk would think us mad if we 
took the trouble to state the same proposition with 
regard to men ; to cite the self-evident fact is still 
necessary in behalf of women. There is no merit in 
weakness ; nay, if you have experience of the world, 
you will probably agree with Dr. Arnold, that the large 
brains and the large hearts have a tendency to go 



Intellect. 25 

together ; and that it is among the thoughtful women 
that you discover the utmost humility, disinterested- 
ness, and devotion. 

But let young girls avoid cultivating intellect for 
intellect's sake. No more barren toil ; no more boot- 
less harvest. Young girls ought to have many duties 
and delights ; and to cause intellect to supersede these, 
is to substitute what is called in Scotland a " dry stone 
dike " for a green, sweet-smelling hedge, — philosophy 
for religion, head for heart. The writer has long re- 
membered another writer's injunction to use literature 
for a means, but never for an end; because if such 
a mistake is fatal to a man, it is doubly fatal to a 
woman. Sir Walter Scott talked of literature being a 
good staff, but a bad crutch ; and girls should so con- 
sider intellect, — a gracious faculty, but no more to 
engross them than beauty. If possible, they must find 
some definite object in their studies. Latin to read 
with a studious elder brother ; natural history to en- 
gage a volatile younger " callant " ; drawing to occupy 
a delicate sister.; political economy to amaze and amuse 
papa; penetration into the besj novels to lighten the 
short leisure, relax and soften the somewhat contracted 
and concentrated sympathies of mamma, or one and all 
to bestow on friends and neighbors. 

If there is no outlet for talents, no prospect of their 
employment, and yet a clear opportunity to cultivate 
them, no doubt it should be taken up in faith. Learn, 
as Lady Jane read Plato, to calm the ruffled temper, 
and soothe the vexed spirit, or even to allay the aching 
finger. Learn for what learning may be some day. 



26 Papers for Though tf u I Girls. 

Most acquirements are called into service at some 
period of life. Believe that it may benefit some one ; 
that it may help to support the student ; that, at the 
lowest estimate, it invigorates and enlarges the mind. 
To learn vaguely, when it is not for intellect's sake, 
is soon to flounder in a sea of knowledge without 
rudder or anchor. The best-intentioned girl cannot 
continue her lessons after she has left school in this 
pointless fashion. To learn selfishly because some gift 
of fancy, reason, or memory is pleased by the exercise, 
or because it is more congenial than any plain, com- 
monplace, tiresome, fatiguing work, is sapping self- 
sacrifice and steadfastness, and at the outset giving 
way to wilfulness, self-assertion, and proud isolation. 
Keep intellect in its proper place as a stately, benign 
handmaiden, but only a handmaiden. Better and 
grander a thousand times the nimble fingers which 
can mend a rent, and mix a basin of soup to the 
comfort and relief of a fellow-creature, than the brain 
that can solve a problem for a feat, or conceive a 
poem for a flight. At the same time, the writer has 
no idea the two processes cannot be combined, and 
mutually improved by the union. Neither does such 
a conviction interfere with a girl's discovering the bent 
of her mind, and if possible, under religious and loving 
limitations, carrying out a peculiar and individual call- 
ing. Only do not overrate intellect. It is no more 
indispensable than beauty \ it was no more supplied 
where it was wanting by the Lord of good than wealth 
or beauty. Especially, do not overstrain a moderate 
intellect to do the work of a mighty one, and load it 



Intellect. 2 7 

like a pack-horse, till the poor, oppressed servant can 
scarcely stumble blinkingly along. This injunction 
needs to be impressed upon the reader, because many 
girls cannot separate intellect from duty, and many who 
would refrain from joining in the chase after beauty, 
exhaust themselves in a superhuman, hopeless effort to 
render -themselves sagacious and profound. 

" There is that maketh the simple wise " ; but it is 
not human intellect or study. Good girls will moil 
and toil through arguments and philosophies beyond 
their bearing, and read heavy books punctually but 
drearily, for conscience' sake. The motive sanctifies 
the labor, but the labor itself is useless. Unfortunately 
it is a mistake which worthy friends often confirm rather 
than controvert. "They do not like us to squander 
our time," says many a girl ; " they want us to read 
something solid, — essays, reviews, works of science 
and history. True, the essays and weighty reviews 
confuse us and set us to sleep ; we have no memory 
or power of classification to enable us to conquer the 
long names of scientific genera, or even the dates of 
history. No doubt it is not nearly so entertaining as 
Miss Yonge's and Miss Manning's books, and other 
books like them. And do you know they actually did 
us good : we thought of them, and behaved more gen- 
erously at that picnic ; we were more courageous and 
contented for them lying on the sofa after our illness ; 
and, ah, would you believe it % we never have such an 
idea of foreign scenery and life as from some of those 
stories ; but you know they are only stories, and our 
friends like us to read solid books. Of course it is 



28 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

right ; and I am sure it is a pity that we have not a 
great taste for poetry, to appreciate Milton, for we did 
so like the sweet, erring, repenting life of Mrs. Mary 
Powell." 

It is a pity that friends are not judicious, and will 
prescribe the same diet for all digestions, and forget 
that strong meat is not for babes, and that there will 
be babes always, as there are boobies always. It is 
the quackery of teachers, and the credulity of the 
public, that can ever cry, "Eureka! the institution, 
the man, the woman is found, under whom there are to 
be no more boobies." Really wise, indulgent friends, 
together with a clear eye to an object in study, and a 
just conception of the relative value of all things, are 
the best safeguards here. Sir Thomas More gently 
advised his Margaret to desist from her attempt at 
a Scripture concordance, if she could relinquish it, 
because, although the effort was noble on her part, it 
was far beyond her knowledge and understanding ; 
and Margaret, mortified, abashed, disconsolate, wrung 
by the passion for so great a work, which she had 
excited in herself, yet yielded meekly, and reaped the 
fruits of her submission in future contentment and 
happiness. 

" Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever." 

Never lose sight of that line. 

The poor lady who was convinced that she had 
done her duty, after she had executed so many yards 
of tape trimming, might in a measure be right, and 
not egregiously wrong, as people have impertinently 



Intellect. 29 

supposed. Great Dr. Johnson, in all his roughness, 
was kinder to the simple-minded ; gifted Sir Walter 
Scott to the commonplace. Such duty as must have 
once gone to sets of worked chairs, to tapestry, to 
Dresden needlework! Who dares say it was thrown 
away 1 ? What gave pleasure and fond gratification to 
grannies and mothers, and younger sisters and little 
daughters ; what was associated in husbands', brothers', 
fathers', sons' minds with all that was estimable, do- 
mestic, dutiful, cheerful; what occupied in patience 
and hope and gentle care, hours and hours of retired, 
thoughtful, bright lives ; what afforded inferiors fair 
patterns of painstaking and steadfastness, and inherent 
love of beauty, need never be derided. Dictionaries, 
lexicons, treatises, great and small, have not effected 
much more for morality. 

The hood you knitted for your old aunt, in the 
invention of whose pattern and the execution of 
whose stitches you felt such modest elation, and took 
such cordial joy; the flowers you moulded or manu- 
factured with such lingering loving touches, for a winter 
table or an old friend's chimney-piece ; the wonderful 
dish you cooked for a birthday treat or a sickly appe- 
tite, are as commendable attainments as any erudition 
a strong mind and a long memory can accomplish. 
Indeed, the strong mind and the long memory are 
lost to womanliness, if they do not love to take refuge 
in such exercises. 

If all friends are not so wise as Sir Thomas More, 
and do not follow his example by giving the advice, — 
" My girl, don't perplex your brains with facts and fig- 



30 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

ures, logic, and speculation, which they cannot com- 
pass, which are enough to send them into a nervous 
fever ; don't think it a merit to have read Alison's Eu- 
rope, volume first, or Hugh Miller's Testimony of the 
Rocks, but have faith in your own honesty and purity," 
— then with all deference to them, I must ask you to 
take the advice from me. There is one book, deep to 
the deepest, but which he that runneth may read, and 
in which the wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not 
err. Compass it ; and after it, read what you feel you 
understand and like, and are the better for, whether 
story or song or parable or hymn. Reject, without 
scruple, what only makes you heavy or bewildered, self- 
important and overbearing. Bear in mind, that if you 
have no inclination or call to deep study, it is not for 
you. The duties of your womanliness" — the plain, 
simple, tender, duties of affection, benevolence, and 
godliness — are infinitely above book-craft, and they 
are always within your reach. Besides, you err greatly 
if you fancy information and accomplishments are ster- 
eotyped in printed books. They exist in the clouds 
of the sky, in the flowers of the field, nay, even in your 
own embroidery. Probably, of all gifts there is no 
such acquisition to the domestic circle as humor, and 
that belongs no more to the learned than the unlearned. 
It proceeds greatly from a habit of nice observation, 
and a capacity for comparing and contrasting the riches 
thus collected, with mingled feeling and fun, mirth and 
pathos. It is richest in the cultivated mind, but it is 
quaintest in the rustic mouth, — the Solomon or the 
Queen of Sheba of the farm-house or cottage. 



Intellect. 3 1 

WHAT BECAME OF PEN? 

" A ND what will become of Pen % " The question 
ii was asked in a company of young people who 
had been driven from playing cricket, and from looking 
on at the wickets, into the shelter of a forsaken school- 
room. Both boys and girls were at that age when they 
are still rejoicing in their emancipation from recent 
bondage ; when they will not readily recross school- 
room thresholds in case they should feel once more 
boys and girls pulling and jerking at the leading-strings, 
and galling themselves with the yoke which they trust 
they have dropped forever. When they do re-enter the 
old precincts, they proceed forthwith to vindicate their 
freedom by violating every venerable rule and prece- 
dent. The boys sit on the desks and whistle in their 
dogs ; the girls sit a la Turque; and speak in loud whis- 
pers of love and matrimony. You observe they are not 
rational, respectful men and women, but restlest, crude- 
minded boys and girls. 

This day the set came back into the school-room, 
because they could not find the key of the summer- 
house ; and groups of papas and mammas, like the 
choruses of Greek plays, occupied the dining-room and 
drawing-room. It was raining so heavily that if they 
remained on the lawn they must resign themselves to 
being as wet as drowned cats within the hour, so that 
the girls would be scolded and sent to change their 
dresses, and even the boys would be aggrieved by in- 
vestigations about their boots, as if they were a lot of 



32 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

Molly Coddles. Therefore they trooped into the dis- 
used school-room, and hastened to behave themselves 
after a fashion that would have provoked the ire of 
former instructors. They had no fear of raising their 
sensible, stolid, affected, despotic, passionate ghosts ; 
they quizzed the maps, they drummed on the tune- 
less, old piano, which would give back nothing but 
scales. 

At last they sat down on the benches in free-and-easy 
attitudes, and a languid wag striking his boot, as if he 
had been a Chesterfield, advanced from reminiscences 
of the past to predictions of the future. " Tom will be 
a captain of volunteers, he has such a head for rows. 
My sister Sophy will rush into an unfortunate marriage, 
and then tear her hair ; she was always so abominably 
given to sinning and repenting ; fingering alum-baskets 
before they were cold, letting loose new dogs sure to 
run away. For James, he has been a steady, sure old 
boy, from his cradle, he '11 stick by the concern, and 
cause it to coin money ; and Miss Jane, too, she '11 go 
in for rank and fortune somehow, but it will be the 
means with her and not the end, as with James ; the 
means of a woman of spirit, to dash and patronize, and 
be astoundingly busy and capable and charitable, — no 
fine woman without charity now, you fellows ! " Fine 
woman, indeed ! these raw boys, woman-haters yet to a 
man, or else " spooney " about the blowziest or namby- 
pambiest of Pollys and Bellas, what could they know 
about a fine woman % 

" And what will become of Pen % " asked an inquisi- 
tive voice. 



Intellect. 33 

Pen was the single girl who had entered the school- 
room with something like sentiment, and had continued 
reflective and tender : " Here I began German. How 
anxious I was to get over the cases, and reach Schiller 
and Uhland. Yonder I read Pope's Homer's Iliad, 
alas ! all of the Iliad and Troy, great Pelides and Atri- 
des, a poor girl was like to attain. On that high stool 
for boobies papa tried to perch himself, when Miss 
Leadbetter invited him in to hear how far she had 
brought me on in fractions. Papa found us working 
on an entirely wrong principle, but he said we had 
made some wonderful hits for women, and he allowed 
us to have the boys' friend, Mr. All worth, to carry us 
through the, first book of Euclid." Pen was roused 
from her reverie by the mention of her own name : 
" What will become of Pen \ " 

" I don't like to meddle with learned ladies," pro- 
tested the clever, forward boy, nonchalantly, with his 
scorn palpably shining through bis pretended respect. 
"I'm always afraid of their subsequent revenge, — 
putting me into a book, or something of that sort, turn- 
ing up their large noses at me, hitting me with their 
cold hands — yes, they have always cold hands ! — 
and bony fingers ; but if I am forced to be heroic, I 
will say that Miss Pen will prove a Minerva in a garret, 
that is, in a good, self-contained house, with two strong- 
minded, intellectual maid-servants, a moral, scientific 
gardener, and no end of doctors and divines, school- 
masters, and missionaries revolving round her like so 
many satellites." 

" We told you so, Pen, we told you so, when you 



34 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

would ask about political economy the other day," 
screamed a chorus of voices. 

" I Ve no objection/' answered Pen promptly enough, 
but not quite candidly ; for it struck her coldly, with a 
wet-blanket sensation, that though she might be happy 
as an independent woman, with her faith to follow, and 
nature, art, and literature to cultivate; — still, to see all 
the others depart from her side and contract new ties, 
and she alone to remain stationary and isolated, was 
rather a dreary prospect. Neither could Pen see any 
inherent necessity for the case, since she knew herself 
to be, in spite of her pursuits, the warmest-hearted of 
the circle. 

At this time, however, Pen was, it must be confessed, 
both shy and ungainly. It is almost impossible for a 
sensitive girl to deviate from the beaten track without a 
sense of oddity and rectangularity perplexing and har- 
assing her. In spite of her mother, she had stinted 
her exercise for her studies and her complexion was 
spoilt, and her carriage impaired. Then she happened 
to be large-boned ! a confirmation which, in opposition 
to plumpness, is at its worst stage at sixteen. Alto- 
gether, Pen Hope would not strike any one as bearing 
the most distant resemblance to a fawn or a rose or a 
fairy \ she was not even a blooming, buoyant girl. Still 
the deprivation was neither very great nor very rare. 
Her defects did not prevent her being a growing, prom- 
ising girl, perfect in all her members, as her friends were 
thankful to see. The Duke of Argyle and Mrs. Glass, 
in their definition of the Deans', settled that Jeanie 
was not "bonnie," just a sonsy." Pen was not "sonsy," 



Intellect. 35 

but she was " wiselike," another graphic Scotch term, 
literally wiselike, with capacity and sense and kindness, 
even in the over-prominent shoulder-blades, which she 
had not given over hitching awkwardly. Be it said in 
conclusion, before dropping the matter, that it is not 
at all an uncommon circumstance, notwithstanding the 
contrary testimony of our poets, to encounter young 
girls, overgrown, bouncing Tom-boys, or gawky, poking 
slips of lath, creatures whose very youth is against them, 
— it is not uncommon to see such as these astonish 
themselves and the ill-natured world by ending in very 
personable, comely women. Far-sighted matrons, with 
various motives, already saw this desirable termination 
in store for Pen Hope along a vista of years, and were 
constantly assuring Mrs. Hope that Pen would look as 
well as her sisters when her time came. There was no 
reason for disbelieving them, unless it existed in the 
pertinacity of the speakers, whose own daughters were 
so much more prococious, so much more symmetrical, 
so much better colored, so much franker and smarter 
than Pen. 

It must be stated that Pen's position in her family 
was at this time anomalous ; she was in one sense re- 
spected and loved, but she was in another teased and 
ridiculed. To shallow, ordinary minds, — and lads and 
girls are usually shallow and ordinary, — the least singu- 
larity is synonymous with absurdity. No such irrever- 
ent tyrants as these young persons. An occasional fit 
of absence of mind, a few instances of forgetfulness of 
common things, will dub a girl with girls as practically 
a fool. Then, if they are not singularly generous and 



36 Papers for T/wughtful Girls. 

delicate-minded, they will begin to play tricks and be 
mischievous to her \ and ten to one but they will suc- 
ceed in rendering her, for a year or two, what they 
have chosen to assume her to be, — a queer mixture of 
cleverness and eccentricity. Her parents had the most 
respect for her at this time, though they too were some- 
what incredulous of the advantage of having her one bit 
more intellectual than the other girls. She was mostly 
" poor Pen." " Pen, you goose," was frequently heard 
from her brothers and sisters ; yet they consulted her 
in every difficulty, sisters listened to her opinion on 
their new acquaintances, brothers told her their minds 
on their professions. 

A few years made all the difference in the world with 
regard to Pen's standing in public and private estima- 
tion. She was fully developed in body and mind ; she 
had lost the ungraceful protuberances which, sprouting 
out here and there, had constituted her ill-proportioned 
physically and spiritually. She had learned to feel at 
ease in the holding of any unusual gift, and to allow it 
neither more nor less than its plain due. What she had 
in keeping with her kind was so much greater than the 
trifles wherein she differed from them, that Pen would 
have now been the first to laugh at the notion that she 
was conspicuous or outlandish. She had evidenced her 
talents ; she had chalked out her walk ; she had estab- 
lished her reputation ; — a superior girl, not so much 
accomplished as well-informed, resolute, and persevering 
in all her ways, and her ways were the ways of a good, 
kind, clever woman. Her father and mother were 
comfortably off, and she did not need to work for her 



Intellect, 37 

bread ; neither was she much required in that debata- 
ble field of housekeeping which swallows up, with such 
feeble results, whole bevies of worthy young women. 
But she experienced no absence of interest and occu- 
pation. She was near a large city, and she attended a 
ladies' college and a school of arts on her own account, 
and with a very cordial appreciation of, and considera- 
tion for, her fellow-students. She dabbled in industrial 
schools, Sunday schools, provident societies, and cottage 
libraries. She was a great gardener, and actually reared 
slips and sowed seeds for the million, striving to foster 
an eye for beauty in eyes that are too often accus- 
tomed to ugliness and deformity. These were Pen's 
outlying concerns. Within doors she managed her 
mother's greenhouse and her father's aquarium. She 
wrote out short-hand notes of college lectures and 
memoranda for her brother Bill ; she filled in bulletins 
of home news, personal opinions, and scraps of reading 
for Joe to puzzle over in his Palmatta hat and shirt- 
sleeves, after his sheep-shearing by the Macquarrie 
river ; she hunted out books not too dry to present 
information and amusement to her sisters ; she was 
friendly to the young maid-servants ; she conferred 
obligations on visitors, and contrived diversions for 
them when their stereotyped stock fell short of their 
necessities. Above all, as a key-note to her upright, 
merciful performance, she never forgot her Bible and 
her prayers. 

The only thing that distinguished Pen Hope from 
the rest of the world now-a-days was this, that, however 
much she had on hands, she was uniformly expected to 



38 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

do still more on any press of engagements. She was 
the installed bee of the family; and when there was 
more honey than usual required for the daily consump- 
tion, it was she who was incontinently appointed to fly 
faster and farther, and complete the deficient nectar. 
However engrossed you found her, she was the indi- 
vidual to turn to with an application for immediate and 
prolonged assistance. She had an immensely broad 
back to bear a sliding-scale of burdens, as she herself 
instinctively perceived and acknowledged. And with 
all her talents, industry, and kindness, there was a 
guilelessness about her that kept her in the midst of 
all her importance free from self-conceit and self-asser- 
tion. She was no longer the butt of the family, but 
she remained their best playfellow. 

Of course, as one consequence of the unequal distri- 
bution of labor in her house, Pen was a very domestic 
animal. Then woe be to the man who should presume 
to withdraw her from her native sphere, and monopolize 
her manifold excellences. In defiance of all the tales 
of match-making mothers, and husband-hunting daugh- 
ters, and careful fathers speeding the parting daughter 
out of a many-daughtered house, the man who should 
propose to take away Pen Hope from Beechhill had 
need to be a bold man, and fit to stand a shower of 
cold water on himself and his base selfishness. The 
Hopes never contemplated the possibility, although 
there was nothing to prevent it. They were defence- 
less against the enemy. Pen's face and figure had 
ceased to be an objection; the big-boned, stooping, 
sallow girl had passed into the stately woman, who 



Intellect. 39 

could not avoid pinning her shawls with a prestige, and 
whose bonnets and hats and auburn hair shaded a face, 
healthy in its colorlessness and thinness, as an active 
mind, a benevolent heart, and a busy life will, with fair 
play, insensibly freshen any face, however sharp and 
pale. She was generally reckoned a fine-looking wo- 
man, though she had high cheek-bones. Her individ- 
ual features were not anything extraordinary, but her 
expression was excellent, so composed, so ready, so 
trusty, and often so humorous. She had one distinct 
beauty. It is seldom that a young face wants one. 
Her hair waved like the ribbed sea-sand, so coyly, yet 
so archly ; — its very roguishness relieving her over- 
grave forehead. 

Ah, but the Hopes had one stronghold against an 
attack upon their fortress, Pen. Pen was a clever 
woman. Married men and bachelors delighted to chat 
with her, but young men were rather apt to hide their 
diminished heads in her presence. She was no subject 
either for their flattery or their banter ; she did not look 
up to them or run after them ; so the best thing they 
could do was to let her alone. 

The Hopes, as has been said, lived near a city. In 
fact, the head of the house was a manufacturer only 
partly retired from business. They had many neigh- 
bors in their comfortable, flowery villa ; wealthy, culti- 
vated, middle-class people in the same circumstances as 
themselves. The villa nearest them belonged to an 
orphan brother and sister, and had been let till the 
brother was of an age to manage his manufactory, and 
the sister to reside with him as his companion and 



4-0 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

housekeeper. These Bushes came at last and displaced 
their tenants. The Hopes were disposed to be atten- 
tive to them, although Ned Bushe was but a good, 
stupid sort of fellow, and Miss Bushe was a thought- 
less, headstrong girl. 

" Look at that note, Pen \ it is as stiff as buckram," 
observed Bill Hope, who was on all occasions as fluent 
in conversation as a Frenchman. 

" He has n't anything to say," decided Pen, suc- 
cintly. " What will a man with so few ideas do in a 
business % " 

" My dear Pen, ideas have nothing to do with a busi- 
ness, unless you are going to turn your mind to inven- 
tions ; and I believe you could not turn your mind to 
what would pay you less in hard cash, or more assur- 
edly break your heart and ruin your temper. It is 
grievous, but we are a slow people." 

" Then I 'm sure Ned Bushe ought to get on. He 
rises with deliberation, he walks with deliberation, he 
sits down with deliberation, he talks with deliberation. 
That man's mind must n't be in a tangle, Bill." 

" Not it. But I was going to say connections are the 
weapons in business, and, luckily for Ned Bushe, those 
of his firm were contracted and cemented before he 
was born." 

" Won't he dissolve them \ " 

" Dear ! no, Pen. What are you thinking of % He 's 
not silly or trifling, only thick-headed. I warrant he 's 
as punctual as a clock, and as constant as old Time 
himself. He '11 make a good master, and not a bad 
friend. I should not mind consulting him in a scrape ; 



Intellect. 41 

you might be long in getting his opinion, a ponderous 
affair, but it would be the right thing at last." 

Men are accurate in distinguishing between silliness 
and dulness. Few men of any brains can, without a 
stretch of charity, abide a weakling, a fritterer away of 
whatever is great, a being tending perpetually to petti- 
ness and meanness. But the smartest man will allow 
a wide sea to a slow boat. He fathoms the soundness 
of the blunt brains, and relies loyally on the deliberate 
sagacity that is so toilsomely worked out and so desti- 
tute of ornament. In strenuous opposition to what is 
frivolous and frothy, an ingenious, lively man will stick 
to and swear by a dull companion. Women do not 
carry out this analysis ; perhaps their education does 
not clearly define the two characters ; at any rate, the 
large proportion of women most incorrectly confound 
heaviness and folly. 

" His word would not be worth the waiting for," 
argued Pen, inconsiderately. " He must be a tiresome 
associate for his volatile sister." 

" You 're out there, Pen ; the merit lies all the other 
way. I was over at Westpark last night. Miss Bushe 
is a fanciful, finical, giddy goose, and I can assure you 
it was highly commendable, and what you would have 
liked, with all your heart, to see how Ned, who never 
had a fancy in his life, cared for her, and tried to make 
her comfortable. He remembered to ask particularly 
how she had amused herself during the day ; he ran- 
sacked his bad memory to bring forth news wherewith 
to entertain her, — what girls he had met ; who was 
riding ; when Lord Conniston's marriage was to come 



42 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

off in St. John's. I tell you he notices as little of such 
trash on his own account as any man. I am sure he 
had not a moment's peace all the time he was smoking 
so solemnly on his road home for recalling and jotting 
down these pink-muslin particulars for her delectation. 
He looked so big and red, and she so neat and pert, 
that it seemed as if he could carry her in his coat- 
pocket, as he would, poor soul ! if it would do her any 
good. Ah ! he'sa capital fellow, Ned ; he 's a splendid 
volunteer, although I 'm always inclined to imagine him 
shouldering a baby instead of a musket, but would n't 
he stand up like a brick and fight like a lion for the 
women and the babies 1 You are very ungrateful, Pen, 
or you girls would all be over head and ears in love 
with Ned Bushe." 

"I dare say he's very worthy, Bill," allowed Pen, 
meekly; "but don't you get sleepy sitting drinking 
your glass of beer opposite him 1 I cannot think how 
you can keep your eyelids up while he rubs his fore- 
head, and leans back in his chair, and smiles such a 
bluff, benign smile," finished Pen, saucily. 

" Not at all. He 's a famous listener ; he always 
attends, and tries to understand, and, I declare, he 
comes out with dead shots occasionally. You've no 
idea how Ned Bushe hits the bull's-eye in his solid 
way, when he's had long enough practice. It is a 
rest to a man to sit opposite Ned. He is a better 
tranquillizer than the very best Cavendish. There is 
not a fellow I enjoy like Ned. I could suppose it a 
kind of earthly Paradise to sail up the Mississippi or 
the Nile, and shoot bisons and crocodiles, and take 



Intellect. 43 

sketches of the natives, and confide all your vague 
day-dreams to Ned Bushe." 

" I don't agree with you," differed Pen, shaking her 
head. " I want no mossy bank or hop pillow, to lull 
me to sleep." 

" That is because you are a crotchety, cantankerous 
woman, full of perpetual motion, and all such spas- 
modic, everlasting horrors." 

Pen went to see Miss Bushe for herself, and found 
her the quintessence of self-will, whim, and variable 
health and spirits. She was incompletely educated, 
full of partialities and prejudices, fond of excitement, 
without perseverance, and very nearly incapable of 
reflection. She was determined to be liked and to 
be happy, and she had about as little notion how to 
set about it as any rational creature under the sun. 
Finding her brother bent on her perfection and felicity, 
she plagued him almost out of his senses. She had 
not been a month at Westpark when she had taken 
disgusts in fifty quarters, and given offence in a hun- 
dred, and then she grew moped and cross and ill, and 
altogether, Fan Bushe, in place of being to be envied, 
as she had intended, was exceedingly to be pitied. 

That was what attracted Pen Hope to her after the 
other girls had discovered her to be provoking and 
aggravating ; after the young men had wearied of her 
as a novelty, and settled that she had not sufficient 
beauty to carry off her humors, when her vanity was 
wounded, and her sincerity, the best thing about her, 
soured. Pen Hope, having a very full complement of 
men and women on her mind and heart already, could 



44 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

not resist adding to them this discontented, undisci- 
plined, ignorant girl. Fan Bushe was glad to have 
Pen walk across once or twice a week during those 
bleak, bitter March days, when her cough was at the 
worst, were it only to convey to her club-books, de- 
signs from her school of arts, recipes for more palatable 
biscuits, and more drinkable gruel. At the same time, 
Fan was little more agreeable to Pen than to the rest 
of the world. She was flighty, and slighted her, she 
murmured and oppressed her perpetually \ but she 
grasped at her kindness, and was resentful if she passed 
a week without coming over to inquire for her, and to 
expend one of her dear hours of well-earned leisure on 
a yawning, grumbling, spiteful girl. 

Fan's eyes were not opened to the extent of her 
debt of gratitude to Pen Hope, and the enormity of 
her utter indifference to it, until one day she was 
guilty of the wickedness and coarseness of sneering 
to her brother at good and noble Pen, and attributing 
to her low motives. Then, indeed, she was fairly over- 
whelmed by the sudden dignity and sternness of the 
good, clumsy, patient Ned, — the crushing emphasis 
with which he pointed out to her, in his plain words, 
that if she were not a motherless girl, a poor fretting 
girl, whom the world took at her own valuation as a 
coquette and tyrant, Pen Hope would not look near 
her ; that Pen was a pious soul, a tender soul, and she 
would fain see all girls healed of their spiritual diseases, 
and rendered as peaceful and industrious and blest as 
herself. Ned Bushe could have bitten his tongue out 
within the hour for being so savage to his foolish 



Intellect. 45 

young sister ; and Fan sobbed as if her heart would 
break, and declared she would go away anywhere, 
where she was not hated, where people would under- 
stand her, and care for her. Alas ! Fan, where, if not 
to Westpark and Beechhill % and to whom, if not to 
such pure Samaritans as your brother Ned and Pen 
Hope % However, Fan appeared next day considerably 
subdued, and inclined to be tearfully affectionate to 
Ned, and decently respectful to Pen Hope ; and oh, 
the treasures of compunction, faith, and fondness 
which Ned lavished upon her, without waiting to ex- 
pose her to ten minutes' probation. 

Ned Bushe used to walk with Pen Hope back to 
Beechhill along the morsel of suburban road, and the 
two shrubberies, when he had come home from his mill, 
just before dinner. Pen feared the escort was a civil 
necessity and antedated both her calls and her departure 
from Westpark ; but then it happened that Ned Bushe 
also antedated his return from his place of business. So 
Pen accepted the courtesy, and determined not to gape 
on principle, and on principle was agreeably surprised 
to discover that she and Ned Bushe could talk together 
pleasantly, like a couple of firm, familiar friends. Ned 
had not read many of her favorite books, was unini- 
tiated in a thousand mysteries of which she had delight- 
ful inklings ; but he was possibly a few steps before her 
in science, and he was her match on any ground of 
social benevolence. It is probable that the members 
of the middle classes, the honest, well-disposed middle 
classes, are better off as man and woman than their 
brothers and sisters a few rounds higher on the social 



4.6 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

ladder, for opportunities of mutual interest, — openings 
where they can alike enter and compare counsel to 
their mutual edification and enjoyment. Unless a man 
is a proprietor, or a soldier, or in the Church, or by 
taste an artist or a naturalist (fortuitous circumstances 
these last, which by no means always happen, except 
in novels), there is a blank between the two classes, — 
a blank which Parliament and public offices will not 
supply. To fill up this blank with operas, assemblies, 
promenades, is a bald process, with unsatisfactory fruits, 
— direly bald and wretchedly unsatisfactory, when it 
concerns a good fellow in the upper rank, with a head 
not raised above horse-flesh and sport. Transplant the 
good fellew into the middle class, rear him a merchant, 
a lawyer, a physician ; and his platitudes, if they are but 
honest, kindly platitudes on " hands," and clients, and 
patients, are not chaff to be cast to the winds. Ne- 
cessity, responsibility, and philanthropy have made a 
man of him, and he will be listened to and respected, 
though he should be flat and tedious. There is a vast 
deal that is wholesome and nourishing in our common- 
est humanity, and your practical people all live to ac- 
knowledge it. 

Pen never despised any earnest, modest human be- 
ing ; but she not only did not scorn Ned Bushe, she did 
not weary of him when he spoke of his mill, his frames, 
his customers, his servants. She tried to appreciate his 
position, she tried to offer suggestions when he asked 
her for them, she was aware he could not unbosom 
himself to Fan, and she had some intelligence on the 
subject at his disposal, by inheritance. Once she was 



Intellect. 47 

rash enough to prick him on to a pecuniary risk. By 
some chance a secret of trade came out between the 
two, and Pen knew that Dillon, who had wanted in vain 
to deal with her father, had also applied unsuccessfully 
for a business engagement with Ned Bushe. The men 
saw him in the same light as the representative of 
a wrecked house ; the women regarded him in other 
colors, as the shamed son of a fraudulent debtor, striv- 
ing in vain to redeem his credit. " That poor Dillon ! " 
lamented Pen. " I wish I were a man, I think I would 
trust him once at least," sighed she again ; and the next 
thing Pen heard was a remark of her father's, that 
young Bushe had been regarded as prudent, though not 
bright, but he would never do if he went and allied 
himself with disreputable people like the Dillons. Good 
Ned Bushe, to extend a twig to a drowning man, and 
not mind being drawn in himself over the boots ; but 
she trusted he would come out dry-shod in the end, and 
rebuke trade-caution. Her father was liberal in every- 
thing save trade. Take care, Pen, that you be not 
liberal, but lavish. 

But business-men are apt to be sick of business, and 
to leave it behind them at their shops, and arrive at 
their town-houses and villas wanting only to be idle and 
amused. This excuse is allowed for their attachment 
to the emptiest and most childish women, or for their 
homage to the mere elegances which are opposed to 
their daily roughnesses. Thus your city-men hanker 
infatuately after the most polished and heartless of fine 
ladies, — women so unwomanly that they never approach 
the citadel of these city-men's hearts and lives, dwell at 



48 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

a distance from their struggles, are satisfied with the 
receipt of the ease and luxury of their husbands' pro- 
vision, and superciliously ignore their origin. Pen was 
considerate enough to understand this phase of a man's 
nature ; and when Ned Bushe sauntered and looked 
about him instead of straight before him, and asked 
after her flowers and drawings, and even made remarks 
on her dress, she relaxed and gossiped glibly with a 
dash of originality in her. gossip which, strange to say, 
he relished keenly, though he could not have traced it 
to its source. 

" What news, Mr. Hope ? " petitioned Mrs. Hope one 
afternoon, according to the custom by which we live, 
like the Athenians, from day to day in order to hear 
and see some new thing. 

" Dillon is down again ; that 's no news \ but Bushe 
has got a slap over the fingers, — serve him right; Bushe's 
house was never before brought in with any such shaky 
concern." 

Truly, the wariness with which manufacturing and 
mercantile voyages can be accomplished, for scores of 
years and whole generations, and yet every leaky vessel 
steered clear of and left behind, is something wonderful. 
It must be a sleight of hand acquired by these money- 
holders. 

" I 'm sorry to hear it, he is such a good-natured fel- 
low, and Bill's friend ; I 'm afraid he 's too soft ; he 
ought to ask advice." 

" Security thrown to the dogs. Dillon could not 
stand \ every old hand and most young ones could have 
told him that." 



Intellect. 49 

Pen was conscience-struck. Doubtless, Ned Bushe 
could afford the loss, but to occasion it, to expose him 
to animadversions, to entangle him in useless, perhaps 
evil, generosity, — she rued her part extremely, and took 
herself to task with the greatest severity. What did any 
woman know of business % What call had she to in- 
terfere in Ned Bushe's concerns % She had thought 
herself very clever and charitable, no doubt ; but this 
slow, soft Ned Bushe would have managed his affairs 
infinitely better without her, — would have done the 
juster, more merciful thing in the end. Pen remem- 
bered what Bill had observed of Ned Bushe's capacity. 
He was not a fool ; he judged correctly, and acted 
firmly when meddlers let him alone. It was Pen's 
first lesson in how far the practical sense of a heavy 
man transcends the theoretical enthusiasm of a clever 
woman. 

Pen took the first opportunity to express her abun- 
dant contrition. 

"Don't say anything about it," entreated Ned Bushe ; 
" I am not sure that you were wrong yet. I have been 
thinking a good deal of what you said of a fellow com- 
fortably off venturing such a sum as he could spare 
every year, not to encourage flash adventurers without 
a farthing, but to stave off bankruptcy from honest, 
hard-pressed strugglers. I think there would be real 
morality in it, and it would not be bad policy either in 
the long-run." 

" But this case was exceptional. It was past being 
retrieved. I did not know that at the time, but I ought 
not to have given an opinion," persisted Pen. 

3 d 



50 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

" Don't mention it ; you can't think I grudge it 
Besides, surely you know I would do anything for 
you." 

The sentence was unmistakable, and Pen could not 
pass it off as a joke, with Ned Bushe striding along by 
her side, so red and serious. 

Pen was dreadfully disturbed. " I beg your pardon, 
Mr. Bushe. Do not say that ; I cannot hear it." Pen 
did not very well know what she was saying, but in 
consideration of her confusion Ned Bushe went no 
further. Pen was not blind to the discomfiture and 
' the involuntary reproach on the face that had always 
turned so willingly towards hers. 

Pen had been very indiscreet ; she who had con- 
stantly taken such good care of herself and others, that 
she was confided in as fully as any old woman. She 
had been cruel too ; she who was in the daily habit of 
contriving a multitude of kindnesses. She considered 
the conclusion ridiculous ; but she wished the absurdity 
were the worst of it. She could not bear to think of 
Ned Bushe feeling repulsed and rejected. What pre- 
sumption and callousness in any woman to entice and 
expose a strong, gentle fellow to such a fate ! As Bill 
had said, Ned Bushe would have borne martyrdom for 
the defenceless if the occasion had called for it, and 
now think of him left to the tender mercies of Fan 
when mortified and heart-sore, as men are even at the 
first brunt of such a disappointment ; think of him sub- 
jected to the unrestrained fire of Fan's levity and petu- 
lance ! How the steady head would ache, the big 
hand tremble, the gray eyes grow dim, when he re- 



Intellect. 5 1 

fleeted that he could not set that unconscionable girl at 
rest, could not contribute materially to her satisfaction 
and enjoyment ; while for his prospect of the union and 
affection of a home, there remained only that Fan's 
miserable selfishness. 

Pen could not aid Ned Bushe any longer, — not 
when his need was greatest. That could not be 
thought of ; she could do nothing more for Fan, 
though Fan should deepen in perversity, and wander 
wildly into vice. She was as sorrowful as sorrowful 
could be. 

Pen thought it like Ned Bushe's generosity to come 
to the house with Bill immediately afterwards, to show 
that he harbored no resentment, even while he was 
fluttered, poor fellow, and could not speak to her. 

Miles Whitcock, the old acquaintance who had 
threatened Pen with the garret half a dozen years be- 
fore, was strolling in the grounds, at Beechhill with 
Bill and Ned Bushe. Mrs. Hope wanted Pen and a 
sister to join them. "Yes, Pen, you must go, for I 
can't send Kate alone, and I don't want them in the 
drawing-room just yet ; I have got a letter to write 
here ; no, thank you, dear, you cannot do it. It is a 
few lines to go with your own letter to poor, dear 
Joe ; and although they are not much worth, I would 
not have my boy miss his mother's sentences for all 
the other boys on the face of the globe. I know Bill 
meditates bringing in these lads to tea ; but if you and 
Kate get your hats, and go out for a stroll, and take 
them round to see the dog and the pony, they '11 dan- 
gle there till supper-time, if you like. I 11 not try you 



52 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

so far. I '11 come out myself and fetch you all in 
presently." 

Pen sallied out, and walked about among the drop- 
ping laburnums and guelder-roses without much heart. 
Bill and Miles Whitcock were in full career on the 
science of history and metaphysics. Ned Bushe was 
walking silently beside them. Was he reflecting of 
what use were his thews and sinews without subtlety 
of brain 1 And why did the rose smell as sweetly to 
him as to another, and the great, ragged house-dog, 
Watch, pertinaciously select his knee to rub his nose 
upon, when he was not fit for high-flown philosophy 
and poetry 1 

To Pen's own surprise, as well as to Ned Bushe's, 
she began to twit him with his attention to the dog. 
" Take care, Mr. Bushe ; don t suffer Watch to use 
liberties with you, or else people will suppose you 
consider him as your equal. You have no idea how 
impertinent the world can be." 

Bill caught up her words, and looked round with a 
surprised, annoyed air ; and Pen herself was scared 
at the idea of having been guilty of a wanton insult 
the moment after she had spoken. 

Ned Bushe crimsoned, and laughed awkwardly. 
" O, Watch is a jolly fellow ! " 

" I cannot see what his jolliness has to do with your 
complacence, unless, indeed, you are grateful to him 
for not being particular in his choice." 

She had repeated the offence, and she could not tell 
why she had done it. She felt stung and exasperated. 
She shut her mouth and pressed her hands together to 
contain herself. 



Intellect. 5 3 

"Pen, you've been walking too much to-day," re- 
marked Bill abruptly; "you're as white as paper. That 
horrid college will be the death of you ; I wonder my 
mother allows it." 

" Miss Pen, I honor your intellectual activity," ob- 
served Miles Whitcock gallantly. 

"Do you?" exclaimed Pen, sharply; "it is more than 
I do. I cannot see that it is much worth." 

" What, Miss Hope, you a deserter ! I thought we 
could always depend upon your support." 

"Did you?" again demanded Pen, and still more 
dryly, sensible that she was anything but gracious. But 
feeling Miles Whitcock in her own mind to be an intol- 
erable prig and pedant, she revolted at the idea of being 
baited by him. You observe, clever as Pen was, she 
was an impulsive woman at the foundation. 

Miles Whitcock was perplexed in his shrewdness. 
Bill thought that he had never seen Pen all ruffled as 
if she had rolled among nettles until this moment. 
Miles Whitcock continued to flatter Pen. Times were 
changed. Pen had risen in his estimation. Pen was 
no mean skirmisher in the war of wit, and of course it 
was to be supposed that she could value a worthy an- 
tagonist. " You don't mean that you 've lost faith in 
the empire of mind, and propose to grovel for the rest 
of your days in patchwork and crochet % " 

" I was very fond of patching when I was a little girl. 
Kate will tell you I like to crochet yet." 

" Oh ! as a foil or a blind." 

" Not at all, Mr. Whitcock. To a foil or a blind I 
trust I would not condescend." 



54 Papers for Thoughtful Girls, 

" Then why in the name of wonder should you waste 
your fine energies % " 

" I 'm not sure that it is wasting my energies." 

" Little means to accomplish httle ends." 

" Mr. Whitcock, you remember the race between the 
hare and the tortoise, and which won ? I don't know 
what I think of the tortoise, but I believe I hate the 
hare." 

" I 'm very glad there is mamma making her appear- 
ance to summon us to tea," put in Kate Hope, " for 
you are too discursive and figurative for me. I cannot 
tell what you are after. Perhaps you don't know your- 
selves. But not a gentleman among you has offered 
me a nosegay, and I gather one regularly every day 
after dinner, and wear it as a bouquet at tea." 

Pen Hope was blushing hotly. She was obliged to 
her mother for advancing to their relief, and she was 
grateful to Kate for diverting the notice from her, and 
coveting for herself the tiniest sprig of hawthorn rather 
than abide being overlooked. Poor Pen, not knowing 
what it was to be indebted to accidents, and the good 
offices of others, had never been so little mistress 
of her own self-respect and serenity. It had been 
an unfortunate, an unhappy evening, and she was sick 
of it. 

" Go and make tea, Penelope." Pen could execute 
that office at least without incurring further distress and 
disgrace. No, Ned Bushe wished to assist her, and Pen 
must look daggers at him to get rid of him, and save 
herself from inflicting on him further injury. You see 
Pen's fetters had been assumed so recently, and still 



Intellect. 5 5 

weighed so heavily, that she was yet mad enough to 
writhe and wrench at them. 

" Miss Pen, pray make up your mind as to what you 
think of the tortoise," whispered Ned Bushe, bending 
down to her. Pen was struck dumb 3 she had never 
anticipated this suggestion. She became deaf too, ob- 
stinately deaf, for the rest of the meal. Ned Bushe 
was assailing her at one ear. Who would have dreamt 
that Ned would have grown valiant % His stature 
towered so big, his voice sounded so deep-toned, even 
in a whisper, that he terrified Pen. And there was Bill 
planting himself on the other side, uttering protests 
against her decoctions, clamoring for cream, and sugar, 
and water, and tea, in successive breaths. She had 
been an attentive sister to Bill all her days : it was 
dreadful despotism in him not to spare her this one 
night. 

Even when tea was removed, Pen could not leave 
the room without provoking observation, so hampered 
does a large family circle and great popularity render a 
notable woman. At last Pen rose up to look for a 
newspaper to which her father had referred, presented 
him with the wrong quotation, and, relying confidently 
on Ned Bushe's civility to sit out her father's elocution, 
went into the greenhouse, as if to fulfil her usual even- 
ing's inspection. But we 've all heard when a modest 
man waxes bold, there are no bounds to his audacity. 
When a pacific man shows fight, he never leaves off till 
he is conqueror of the field. The enemy followed Pen 
unwarrantably, and she found, too late, that she had 
exchanged the comparative safety of disregarded whis- 



56 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

pers, in the busy crowd of the drawing-room, for loud 
speech in the stillness and solitude of the greenhouse. 
Ned Bushe was either magnanimous to begin with, or 
else he designed to throw Pen off her guard. He pro- 
fessed that he had only come there to second her in 
pulling off the dead leaves, and tying up the drooping 
branches ; he even lopped off a bough which had been 
beyond Pen's power of decapitation, and which Bill had 
shamefully neglected for the last fortnight. 

" You would not be the worse of a strong, steady 
fellow constantly at hand," commented Ned Bushe 
insidiously. " You may sow and water and trim things 
like these, and name them by names I cannot remem- 
ber, and see them in lights I do not perceive, but for 
all that, you are no more fit for the heavy, dirty work 
of life than a weak child like Fan." 

Pen vouchsafed him no answer. 

" Of course I understand that you might find a friend 
as sharp as I am blunt, who would electrify you to no 
end, but the cleverest man alive could not invest you 
with the privilege it is mine to bestow. Pen, Pen, I 
could envy you that privilege." 

" What privilege % " demanded Pen, bewildered. 

" That of stooping to the fellow who loves and hon- 
ors you. Ah, Miss Hope, if I could but bend and dis- 
tinguish you 1 " 

" Every good man distinguishes the woman he ap- 
proves," said Pen, in low, truthful, humble tones ; and 
then she burst out passionately, " You are as bad as 
Miles Whitcock." 

Ned Bushe looked aghast. 



Intellect. 57 

" Who said that I idolized intellect ; that I did not 
think the wisest woman that ever was born — who 
could cast a girdle round the globe, or dig to the foun- 
dations of the earth — only a frail, erring human being, 
not to be compared to a brave, righteous, man % " 

" Pen, Pen, come out and see the glowworms," called 
a turmoil of voices in the distance. 

"Yes," answered Pen, excitedly, hastening to obey 
them. " We are no more than a race of moiling glow- 
worms, and some of us are gifted with lamps a grain 
bigger than others, and of course we are charitably sup- 
posed to be dazzled with our own blaze of light."' 

" If you are dazzled, Pen, won't you have my arm 1 " 

" I never thought that I was dazzled ; it was you that 
would have had me credit it." 

" Well, then, dearest Pen, cannot you submit to a false 
accusation 1 " 

Pen submitted : a true man's arm is not a stay for a 
true woman to cast off. 

" It is too bad/' asserted Bill Hope, coming into the 
room with the calmness of despair, closing the door 
carefully after him, and addressing Mrs. Hope, Jane, 
and Kate, who were sitting at work without Pen ; " Ned 
Bushe has gone and asked Pen to marry him." 

Every needle was arrested, every feminine eye twinkled 
like a star. 

" Nonsense ! " 

" Fact, I assure you." 

" What can have induced him to take that upon him 1 
Of course Pen has refused him ? " 

" Has she 1 She has referred him to my father." 



58 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

" There must be a mistake, Bill, Ned Bushe is such a 
great simple fellow." 

" Sharp enough for his own ends, it seems. I wish I 
had never introduced him to the premises. I assure 
you he is too slow a coach to run into an error. Be- 
sides, I saw that somebody or other was in a mess last 
night." 

"But Pen cannot do without us." 

Bill laughed ironically. 

" Very well, Bill, I 'm sure I know we '11 be stagnant 
without Pen ; she was always moving about, and bring- 
ing in fresh air. But Pen has been so occupied with 
her books and fellow-creatures, I declare to you she has 
no hands to speak of, except for her patterns and her 
letters, which will be of no use to her now ; she has 
interfered very little with the management of the table, 
she dresses without taking much pains, and she sews 
very indifferently." 

" Bless you, Kate, Ned Bushe does not want hands ; 
for that matter he can hire them by the hundred ; he 
wants a head, and has got it, — the clearest head in the 
house," groaned Bill. 

" The clearest head in the house thrown away on a 
blockhead," continued Kate, flippantly. 

" Come, come, Kate, that is pushing the objection too 
far," corrected Bill, with a reaction to his old allegiance ; 
" he has a thick skull, but it is over an allowance of good 
material. Upon my word, it stands him in better stead 
than an inflated egg-shell containing a heap of brain- 
batter. I maintain he 's as sensible a fellow as you 
or I." 



Intellect. 59 

Mrs. Hope had cried, " Not possible ! " with the 
others, probably a solitary instance of a mother incred- 
ulous over a proposal of marriage to a daughter. Since 
then she had been sunk in profound meditation ; now 
she looked up as bright and sanguine as her name. 
" My dear, it strikes me we are viewing this affair in a 
selfish, cross, wrong light. It has come upon us unex- 
pectedly, but certainly, superior girl as Pen is, it is not 
an improper match for her. A young man, with a good 
character and a good establishment, there is nothing 
to be said against him. We shall miss Pen sadly, not- 
withstanding she is only going next door, and I had an 
idea that your father and I would have had her all our 
lives. I 'm not sure that papa will receive Ned Bushe's 
offer very frankly at first ; but when he comes to con- 
sider it, he will be glad to have Pen settled so safely, 
though I am thankful that he can provide for his girls, 
in a pecuniary way, without needing any man to take 
them off his hands. Yes, and I am proud to say," rah 
on the loving mother, with her eyes getting moist, " Pen 
would not have been at a loss left without a shilling, but 
would have kept herself as honorably and happily as 
she has helped to keep others. Many good wishes will 
go with my dear, capable, excellent Pen." 

" But, mamma, what can she marry him for % " specu- 
lated Kate. " For his money % But Pen was never 
mercenary, and we are richer than he is." 

" For his figure," suggested Jane, who was a mite of a 
woman, and had a susceptibility to beef-eaters. " Ned 
Bushe is a stately man, though he 's not bright." 

"And Pen is a stately woman," chimed in Bill. 



60 Papers for TJwughtful Girls. 

" They will make a strapping couple. I dare say that 
was Pen's ultimatum, after the example of Frederick 
and his grenadiers. Was she greatly addicted to Car- 
lyle's bookT 

" It was to escape the reproach of being an old maid," 
announced Kate on second thoughts, with an accent of 
entire conviction. " And Pen a superior woman ! I 
am quite ashamed of her proceeding ; nobody expected 
it of her. I don't know what I 'm to say about it." 

" Pen marries for love," said the middle-aged, matter- 
of-fact mother, so much deeper read in the secrets of 
humanity than the clever son, or the accomplished 
daughters. Speaking with gathering pride and joy, she 
continued, " And she will be a happy woman. For him, 
my dears, you will be astonished to find how he will im- 
prove. A man like him is made by a marriage with a 
woman like Pen. He will open up, and shoot out, and 
take his place amongst the best in the neighborhood. 
I have known a man the most solemn, dry-haired mor- 
tal possible, get quite chatty and jocular under the cir- 
cumstances." 

" No thanks to him for it," flung in Bill. 





III. 



BEAUTY. 




T may seem strange to dedicate a grave 
paper to a skin-deep charm. We are a 
nation of philosophers ; we are religious 
as well as reasonable ; yet we have only to 
enter into society to see that a girl's sweet face is apt to 
be treated as her chief jewel. There is no exaggera- 
tion intended ; it is only a fool who will take regular 
features and a carnation complexion in lieu of all other 
engaging qualities ; but in alliance with them the old 
song of " My face is my fortune " may still be loudly 
sung. What does a young girl intuitively desire, but to 
present a pleasing appearance among her companions 
and before her world, — to be graceful if not lovely, 
neat if not graceful 1 They say even Madame de Stael 
would have pledged her intellect against Madame Re- 
camier's beauty. Why refuse to look plainly at this 
second nature 1 Why insist on ignoring it in spite of 
its universal force, and the immense expenditure of 
time, means, and mind which it costs ? Why not 
rather try to measure it, to say how far it is right, 



62 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

where it should end, what should be its counter- 
poise % 

Strange enough, that while the Sauls have lost much 
of their ancient prestige, as by the head and shoulders 
above their brethren ; while we are no longer wild, 
poetic folk, clinging to personal distinctions, valuing 
our men by their Wallace height and yellow hair, their 
Bruce's length of arm and iron jaw, we do still esteem 
our Abigails for their comeliness rather than their dis- 
cretion, our Sarahs for their fairness rather than their 
fidelity. But mark this limit ; men and women are 
caught by such graces, they are not retained by them. 
No, no ; plain and homely women, take this comfort to 
yourselves. Only by such truth and tenderness as may 
rise in floods beneath the rough outlines of your un- 
gainly and unprepossessing features, can friends be kept 
and lovers held till death, and beyond death. 

But the secret of captivation ; the winning look, air, 
tone, what a gift it is ! Do not venture to deny it be- 
fore Rachel loved and Leah hated ; before Job's daugh- 
ters, with their recorded inheritance. Beauty, then, is 
a possession given by God ; it is in itself a blessing, 
and no curse. No one need be ashamed to claim it ; 
no one need be ashamed to cherish it in its degree. 
Let it be worn meekly, let it be used graciously, let it 
be consecrated by baptism, and there it stands like the 
blush of the rose, and the daisy's whiteness, to delight 
all eyes and hearts, to do God's work. 

Now, with regard to what it certainly is not : it is far 
from the first gift. The God-man, who showered bless- 
ings on the poor and needy, peace to the guilty con- 



Beatity. 63 

science, health to the drooping body, sight to the dim 
eyeball, hearing to the dull ear, in all his giving gave 
neither wealth nor beauty. Does any one object to the 
remembrance as uncalled for 1 But, my friend, young 
girls would often, do sometimes, barter one of his 
precious loans, namely health, in the reckless race after 
beauty. There is a terrible little story, either in Bos- 
well's Johnson, or in Madame D'Arblay's Diary, of a 
young girl, who, in preparation for an assembly, with 
the view of reducing her ruddy color to a genteel pale- 
ness, had herself taught " blood-letting," and practised 
the art so effectually, that she appeared in the ball- 
room like a ghost, the open vein burst afresh during 
the following night, and she lay a corpse the next morn- 
ing ! Glance into the chronicles of beauty, the journals 
of fair women of world-wide renown, and you will find 
how the pure fountain of life has been corrupted and 
drained for the establishment or maintenance of beauty ; 
from the distilled apple piece of gentle Mary Granville, 
and the sow's milk of proud Lady Eglintoun, to the 
evidence in a late poisoning case, where the horrors of 
swallowing arsensic and imbibing it by the pores of the 
skin were alleged to have been braved, for the mere 
chance of whitening tan or inherent dunness. What 
sufferings have been inflicted on themselves and others 
by the queens of faces ! not always intentionally, not 
always wittingly : — 

" But evil is wrought by want of thought, 
As well as want of heart. " 

It was not only to answer " the pomp of pride," but 
also the demands of pampered beauty, that any miti- 



64 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

gated original of such a picture could have been sup- 
posed to exist. 

4 ' And, oh ! those maidens young, 

Who wrought in that dreary room, 
"With figures drooping like spectres thin, 

And cheeks without a bloom ; 
And the voice that cried, * For the pomp of pride, 

We haste to an early tomb ! 
For the pomp and pleasure of pride, 

We toil like Afric slaves, 
And only to earn a home at last 

Where yonder cypress waves ' : 
And then they pointed — I never saw 

A ground so full of graves." 

Therefore beauty has its solemn, awful side, its respon- 
sibility and its burden ; and when you girls sigh for it, 
never forget that it would be one more talent to be ac- 
counted for \ and be very sure that you trade with what 
talents you possess, and double them before you clamor 
for another. 

The wise man said, " Beauty is deceitful." His words 
have been drawn out, and twisted, and mistaken until 
worthy people have come to be very near thinking that 
beauty, God's gift, is no gift at all, or the Devil's gift, 
and, against their own unerring instincts, they have 
abused it publicly and prized it by stealth. Still, beau- 
ty is deceitful, and for the very reason that has given it 
a precedence in these essays ; because it is the most 
attractive gift which can outwardly distinguish a young 
girl ; because it is seen to a certain extent and appre- 
ciated by all, and most highly appreciated by those 
most incapable of appreciating any other endowment, 



Beauty. 65 

— it is "deceitful," perhaps the most perilous of all 
goodly inheritances to a woman. For a beauty, ad- 
mired, courted, and caressed, exalted abroad and made 
much of at home in a fond reflection of her triumphs, 
it is probably more difficult to be sincere, unselfish, 
humble, patient, opposed to sense and inclined to faith,, 
than for any other female character ; unless a poor, 
wretched creature, soured by ill-treatment, stupid by 
ignorance, and mad by anguish. Addressing good, 
reasonable girls, need I ask if it is wise in them to pine 
for this temptation % 

A word to the plain, the homely, the hard-favored 
in all respects ; a word, cordial and not cold, honest 
and not false, cheery and yet sympathetic. I do not 
say, what many will tell you, that beauty is only skin 
deep ; you know that as well as I. I do not say 
to you, what many will assure you of, that it is of no 
consequence ; plain women are as much admired and 
loved ; only the weak or the vicious put a weight on 
beauty. You and I know that it is not true : we have 
seen or heard of the good and gifted led in beauty's 
chains as well as the silly and besotted ; wise men and 
women infatuated, true men and women tortured. But 
for all that, there is ample comfort for you, enough to 
heal your heart, and make you what you so often are, 

— the most estimable and the dearest in the end. Ac- 
cept a few plain, prosaic hints, and one high, pure, 
strong consolation. 

Very few have not some pleasantness in their persons ; 
there are as few strictly ugly as strictly beautiful. The 
most have medium attractions, differing in value very 

E 



66 Papers for Thotightfid Girls. 

much according to different tastes. It is probable that, 
in discontent or morbid humor, you have forgotten 
this, and overlooked some fresh tint, some shapely fea- 
ture', some soft outline, some arch dimple, some speak- 
ing brightness, which, to many a one, may be quite 
enough to gratify the eye and warm the heart. It is 
even a fact, that what are ordinarily reckoned defects, 
to some visions are excellences. I think Cobbett 
owned such a convenient perversity, and William 
Wordsworth was more than suspected of it. An intel- 
ligent expression, above all a benevolent expression, 
peace and purity on the brow, faith in the eyes, love 
on the lips, will, unless in rare cases, supply the ugliest 
fairy with sufficient charms to constitute her the favorite 
godmother in the long-run. 

5 It is only the outer world which beauty affects. 
What heart capable of loving ever loved a good moth- 
er, sister, wife, daughter, less for a sallow skin, a squint, 
a projecting tooth] It is undeniable that in existing 
society the want of generally acknowledged personal 
comeliness may limit the ties of life, may prevent sym- 
pathetic feeling, and leave affection unsought and un- 
claimed ; but it does not influence the ties which God 
has already formed for us, and surely there are few 
entirely without them. At the worst, there are the ties 
of the forlorn in all ranks ; the poor, whom we have 
with us always. Do you remember the poet's advice 
to the high-born beauty " sickening of a vague dis- 
ease " ? (you see beauties have their troubles like other 

people), — 

" Go teach the orphan boy to read, 
And teach the orphan girl to sew." 



Beauty. 67 

But I would not stop short with averring that personal 
defects and weaknesses do not influence us in the ties 
which we already grasp in defiance of them. If hearts 
be generous and tender, do not infirmities and bodily 
crosses draw the bonds of kindred and friendship closer 
and tighter ] Look at the mother's sacred devotion to 
her deformed, ay, her idiot child. Will not the manly 
brother regard with a vein of fond chivalry the short- 
sighted, awkward, freckled, or red-haired sister, who is 
yet his darling and his good angel % Does not the fa- 
ther care exceedingly for his little pet who is a cripple, 
or deaf, or merely very ordinary, and overlooked and 
neglected among other girls, though she is the delight 
of his eyes and the joy of his heart % Cannot you fancy 
the gallant husband who has been brave enough to wed 
for ornaments which are not worn for every gazer, hav- 
ing a deep satisfaction in his wisdom, a sweet exultation 
in his loyalty % 

Again, for the weightier argument : you gentle, noble, 
godly girls, have you not wished to have your share of 
enduring and suffering for the good Master % Have you 
not pondered who were your enemies, and how, accord- 
ing to the restraints of society and the control of your 
friends, you might best forgive and love them ? Have 
you not debated who were the needful whom you might 
succor ] Have you not puzzled over wearisome obsta- 
cles and conflicting interests ] — your slender stock of 
pocket-money ; the prejudices and partialities of your 
friends who have the first claim on your duty, and who 
are constantly warning you against your neglect of your 
obligations to your equals, and rash running into unsuit- 



68 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

able situations'? Have you not asked what was the cross 
which you could, in His strength, carry meekly and 
cheerfully for Him who bore the awful cross for you ] 
What if this little thwarting of your inclinations and 
mortifying of your love of praise be part of your cross 1 
" O," you say, " this is too light a matter to be treated 
so seriously; it sounds like profanation to hear it put in 
such a light !" But beware of regarding anything as too 
light to come under your religion. Beware of divorcing 
any part of your walk from your spiritual life. Remem- 
ber the Apostle's lesson, "Whether ye eat or drink, or 
whatsoever ye do, do all unto the Lord " ; and that, 
while we stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has 
made us free, it is not reverence which separates our 
common cares from God ; it is hardness of heart and 
unbelief. At this rate we will have heaven on one side 
and earth on another. We will have angels and the 
spirits of just men made perfect, dissevered from our- 
selves and our dearest and best, from the bravest, wor- 
thiest, and most religious of humanity, because while 
here below we must all follow 

"The daily round, the common task" ; 

because we are all more or less sullied and stained by 
mortal error, and we forget that we are washed in an- 
other's blood, and clothed with another's righteousness. 
And then when the veil is rent which separates the two 
kingdoms, our faith fails, and we are tossed on the 
stormy sea of confusion and misery. This is not the 
lowly, guileless acceptance of, and dependence on, the 
promises which are "yea and amen in the Lord." I 



Beauty. 69 

repeat it: this is not the love of children, but the doubt 
of stubborn, suspicious, worldly wisdom. 

Suppose, when you stand before a mirror with a com- 
panion, and see her radiant face, typical of all harmony, 
reflected therein, and your heavy, harsh mask of discord 
given back to you ; when you come back from a pho- 
tographer's with a whole handful of photographs, and 
remark the many clear-cut and responsive to the soul 
within, and the one lowering, coarse, vulgar, a libel as 
it seems on all true emotions and upward flights ; when 
you go out into company, and feel yourself eclipsed by 
those who are (you cannot help recognizing by their 
fruits) inferior to you in intellect and heart, — well, what 
then % Do you say something satirical, sharp, and un- 
kind? or cling to a delusion, insisting, like the man 
before the mirror, " not handsome, but genteel " % Do 
you cry " Pooh ! " as Mr. Burchell of old cried " Fudge ! " 
while you are inclined to prick your rivals with pins, as 
the witches pricked the waxen images of their foes ] 
But if you whispered softly to yourself, " He sent it to 
me to keep me humble/' what would come of if? Would 
you not gladly bear the drawing-room oblivion, slighting 
and scoffing though it sometimes be 1 Would you not 
wax hale and hearty from a consciousness of duty done, 
finding abundant sunshine in the shade, swallowing 
draughts of pleasure from the pleasure of others, from 
the simple power of observation, from a sense of humor, 
from your friendliness, — all disengaged and vigorously 
rampant? Would not your enjoyment, after all, be to 
the full as real, and very often much more unimpaired, 
than that of the belles of the evening, just as a set-aside 



jo Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

invalid life, with the good and the pious, is often steeped 
in contentment, and mellow with the gayety of the heart, 
and the happiness of peace % 

Young girls, are you blooming, stately, agile, pretty ? 
Do not be hypocrites about it. It is just possible one 
engrossed or careless heart does not heed it, one very 
modest temper is not sure of it, doubts it with even 
painful suspicions of a mean, base tabernacle of the 
flesh. It is more likely that several spirits, acting on 
upright principle and high nurture, try strenuously to 
crush out the sense of pleasure in their fair faces and 
lithe figures, and strive to persuade themselves that 
they are as indifferent to them as any veiled nun 
should be, as if they were clad in serge instead of silk, 
and crowned with a quakeress's cap in place of flowers 
or pearls. 

AVould it not be better to take beauty for what it is 
worth, — 

" Nothing extenuate, nor aught set down in malice" ; — 

but be at least as true with regard to it as in reference 
to everything else 1 Having owned that it is there, as 
eyes and lips have told you, thank God for it, pray that 
it may be consecrated to him, and think of it humbly 
ever afterwards. Do not at once clutch and shrink from 
it as an irresistible snare. Remember the Lord gave it 
to Job's daughters, and their beauty was w r ritten in his 
Book. It is a talent \ see that you neither fold it up in 
a napkin, nor misname it the Devil's coin. It is true 
that it will wear out in the using, but so will men's thews 
and sinews, and their brain-chambers of memory and 



Beauty. 7 1 

imagination in this world ; and who marvels when we 
speak of their being employed for God's honor % Who 
questions that they will be restored and glorified in the 
new heavens and the new earth % Rather guard your 
youthful comeliness, that it may pass into what is a 
nobler, more touching spectacle, — the comeliness of a 
blessed old age ; keep it that it may be in perfection in 
Paradise. Is there any danger of your esteeming it too 
highly % not much, if you will see it in this light ; a vast 
deal, if you will regard it as a stolen good, and bread 
eaten in secret ; if you will separate it from your Chris- 
tianity, and deck it out a vain, worldly, heartless, god- 
less thing, armed for conquest, to feed your pride, to 
cater for your worst passions, your arrogance and selfish- 
ness, your envy, malice, and all uncharitableness. 

Think of it, all you who are beautiful, and you who 
are not. You who are beautiful, be beautiful to the 
Lord, and give God thanks ; and you who are not 
beautiful here, rest assured you will be fair enough 
yonder, and give God thanks. 



THE BEAUTIES. 

WHEN St. Stephen's Green was the fashionable 
promenade in Dublin, not long after pretty 
Mrs. Delany and tuneful Mrs. Donellan walked three 
times round it, and three times passed the brass statue 
of George the Second, every fine day, in order to recruit 
their constitutions and complexions for the Bishop of 
Cork and Ross's hospitalities, two girls, in the poplins 



72 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

and mantuas of the genteel life of the period, walked in 
the dusk of the evening in the direction leading from 
Leeson Street to Fishamble Street. They were panting 
with the speed they were making, while they occasion- 
ally talked with much eagerness. 

" I wonder if we shall get them, Sally 1 " 
" If we do, they will be the top of the mode, Peg, for 
she never has anything behind the fashion." 
" I wonder if we shall charm her ladyship ? " 
" Sure, we can try, Sally ; if we do, it will be the 
making of us." 

Clearly, it was a mission of great importance in the 
girls' eyes, enough to engross them so completely, that 
they neither looked to the right nor to the left as they 
pursued their way, though more than one passenger in 
the dim light looked after them. Maria Edgeworth tells 
us, that at the Dublin Ranelagh her young sister Honor 
was mobbed and compelled to retire from the scene — 
strange distinction of royalty and beauty ! — on account 
of her personal attractions ; but these girls in the 
sprigged poplins, they not only charmed Dublin, they 
turned the dogged John Bull head of the city and 
court of London. They were not altogether safe from 
notice and annoyance at this hour and in these streets, 
but Irishmen are gallant and Irishwomen fearless. 

However, as the girls approached the door of a house 
in Fishamble Street, one of them hung back. 
"I cannot do it, Peg; she will be angry." 
" Angry, child ! she is the best-natured woman in the 
world." 

" She will grudge her lute-strings and laces." 



Beauty. 73 

" Grudge, Sally ! she is so free-handed, she scatters 
silver coin every night among the boys and girls that 
run after her chair." 

" And they cry, ' We don't want your p'oor money ; 
we want one of your smiles, you jewel, for they are like 
the dawn of day.' But now, Peg, don't you think it is 
low in us to push ourselves into a players house and 
borrow her bravery % " 

" My dear creature, we cannot help it, it is our only 
hope. Such a dance as I have run to get the card to 
the Lady Lieutenant's, and it is plain we cannot go 
without fine clothes, and father finds he cannot furnish 
them. Bless you, we will pay them back like queens 
when we are ladies of quality, with rich lords at our 
backs." 

Pay them back, indeed ! When did rampant selfish- 
ness remember a benefit, worldly or unworldly? The 
tradition lingers of the loan, but who records the repay- 
ment % What mention is there made of the two love- 
liest and stateliest peeresses in his Majesty's realm 
supporting and consoling poor penitent Peg Woffing- 
ton? 

" O, Peg, Peg Gunning ! I don't think it is becom- 
ing." 

"You silly, changeable chit, we have no time to 
lose," scolded the bolder adventuress. " I '11 tell you 
what, Sally ; will you go in with me, if I fetch out Sally 
Fortescue, who is to introduce us to her ladyship, and 
if she consent to bear us company % " 

" It would not be so bad, Peg," granted Sally, like 
all cowardly, credulous persons, inclined to snatch at 
4 



74 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

the defence of company \ " you know you often say the 
more the merrier." 

" I never need folk to lead me by the nose," grum- 
bled Peg, " but Sally Fortescue is good-natured when 
you speak her fair ; and she wants sorely, for her own 
ends, to be sure, to be off with her ladyship, while we 
want as mightily to be on with her ; so for the present 
we suit each other like curds and cream. Just wait a 
bit in the entrance, Sally, and see that you don't let any 
of the men look under your hood." 

Away dashed the proud, sharp schemer and leader, 
who bore down and dragged after her the more fretful, 
but more scrupulous companion. In a few minutes she 
returned with a girl blushing under her hood, and pluck- 
ing nervously at her apron. 

" I 'm afraid it is not right, Peg ; you may have any- 
thing you like of mine, and welcome ; I '11 rather stay 
at home myself." 

" Heyday ! and who would present us to her Lady- 
ship % Besides, you know, your aunt would not let you, 
and you have nothing to suit us. Why, you are three 
inches lower than Sally here, though they do couple 
you, and call you the " sweet Sallies.' " 

" What will your father say ? " 

" He would swear like a trooper if he knew it to- 
night \ but he '11 laugh till his sides split when he hears it 
to-morrow, more, by token, if we make a hit. I tell you 
what, Sally Fortescue, I cannot dawdle in the street till 
nightfall, and have some of those fellows of St. Patrick 
to keep off you two silly Sallies. O dear, and it is 
time to dress already. What is to hinder us from com- 



B-eauty. 75 

mitting a piece of folly like our betters % merely calling, 
in a frolic, on the most bountiful woman in Ireland or 
the world, and asking her if she will consent to succour 
two distressed wretches in their extremity. If you do 
not come with us this minute, Sally, I will judge you 
are not in earnest in proposing us to take your place, 
and travel with her ladyship to deliver her from the 
vapors." 

" O, it will be such a disappointment if we are not 
allowed to meet her eye, and make our fortunes," broke 
in the other Sally piteously. " If, after all, we have to 
stay at home and darn frills, and cry our eyes out to- 
night I " 

" I wish I were darning frills down at Deanston," 
exclaimed Sally Fortescue, almost crying herself; "but 
I have a great desire to help you, since you are not 
well off here, and could fill my place without any loss 
to yourselves. I saw Mrs. Woffington at the Bishop's 
last night. I '11 go with you." 

The three hurried on a few paces, and stopped be- 
fore a door. The mistress of the party knocked with- 
out, a moment's pause. A slatternly lodging-house ser- 
vant, slatternly, but still pleasant as only Irish women 
can look pleasant in rags and dirt, and hair all dangling 
about their ears, answered their summons. Mrs. Wof- 
fington was at home, but could see no company ; she 
was about to get ready for the theatre. 

What was to be done then % 

" Tell Mrs. Woffington it is three rival beauties in 
trouble, who have ventured to seek her counsel and ask 
her charity." 



J 6 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

" Send them up, honey," called a rich voice over the 
filthy bannisters ; " Peg Womngton don't refuse a favor 
when she can grant it, and sorry a rival does she fear 
either." 

They mounted the littered staircase, where cabbage- 
stalks and withered nosegays tripped the feet of the 
great actress, and entered a parlor smelling vilely of 
tobacco-smoke, and used as a sitting-room and dressing- 
room. It was run over with heterogeneous clothes, 
play-books, and play-bills, gilt crowns and nun's beads 
and cards of invitation. There was a cleared corner 
of the table, on which lay fragments of bread and 
cheese, at which the occupant of the room was still 
munching. Possibly it was not too untidy or unsavory 
a snuggery for Peg Womngton, who was picked up by 
Argus-eyed Madame Violante humbly washing clothes 
at the side-current of the Liffey. 

In the middle of the mess stood the people's beauty 
tapping her fingers on the table, and meeting with vi- 
vacity the faltering gaze of the new-comers. She was 
dressed in the universal poplin, with no ruffles but cam- 
bric frills round her arms, and a fly-cap on the back of 
her head. Her face was somewhat broad, but with the 
perfection of teeth and eyes to which some faces owe 
so much, and with that constant succession of light and 
shade, flicker and flash, which belongs to a mobile ex- 
pression, and invests it with a fascination which is like 
that of flesh and blood over wood and stone. She was 
buxom, brilliant, kindly ; but woe is me ! there were 
lines of self-indulgence already written round the flexi- 
ble mouth with the milk-white glittering teeth \ and in 



Beattty. JJ 

the warm hazel eyes there had gleamed ere now evil 
spirits of wantonness and passion. 

" I am Peg Woffington ; at your pleasure. What do 
you Dublin belles want with me ? I wot I 'm more 
plagued with Dublin beaux ; but perhaps for that very 
reason I can read your fortunes, or fetch and carry 
billets-doux." 

" Oh, Mrs. Woffington, you can confer on us a huge 
obligation ; but I 'm ashamed to speak of it," sighed 
the first intruder. 

" Pho ! Pho ! out with it, girls ; we are equals when 
you come to see me, and no one can say I ever turned 
my back on an ally, though many an ally has played 
a scurvy trick on me. Only don't keep me waiting ; 
I 'm his Majesty's and the country's servant, remember 
that " ; and Peg laughed her gay, somewhat boisterous 
laugh, reflecting to how many her service was slavery. 

" We are the Gunnings," declared the petitioner, au- 
dacious enough after she had once begun, " and this is 
Sally Fortescue from the south ; and after yourself we 
are the three top beauties of Dublin this season." 

" I know, I know," cried Peg, delighted with her 
visitor's frankness ; " one of you is called Peg after my- 
self. We are called ' the pretty Pegs,' as the others 
are styled 'the sweet Sallies.' Which is my name- 
sake?" 

" It is I, Mrs. Woffington." 

" Let us see you, lass, at close quarters " ; and Peg 
laid friendly but determined hands on the hood. 
"Hum — not bad; I'm no whit ashamed of my fellow." 
Ashamed, Peg? If you had not held the dregs of a 



J 8 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

noble heart, full of free admiration of all that was beau- 
tiful, you would have been furious with jealousy. You 
had reigned on your own boards ; but yours were but 
plebeian boards after all ; hers was to be a patrician 
footstool to a patrician throne. A whole century has 
echoed the renown of the Gunnings' faces, and their 
born aristocracy of beauty ; their ivory brows ; the curl 
of their long brown eyelashes ; the dimples in their 
cheeks of velvet, brushed with the bloom of the peach ; 
their fine noses and chins ; their delicate, haughty 
nostrils; their throats, where the black velvet bands 
formed wicked contrasts with the white, firm, yet soft 
flesh and blood, — something not cold like snow, but 
warm as a little bird, and mellow in its whiteness, like 
the white in the fur of the ermine. 

Peg Woffington drew a long breath of approval. 
" I 'm afeared to have any more looks/' she declared 
in comical consternation. But she was not frightened 
or vexed ; she was delighted, — poor ardent Peg ; and 
she fairly clapped her hands when, having gloated over 
the other Gunning, she finally unhooded Sally Fortescue, 
— a face at that moment as crimson as a stock gilly- 
flower, half shy, half vexed, yet so open, so pure, with 
such cool, calm wells of eyes, such a gentle placid 
mouth. 

" You three bate Banagher," cried Peg, making use 
of her old brogue ; " you are a fine set of beggars, you 
darlings. What can I do for you % Shall I drive every 
lord from the green-room ] Shall I order them to have 
a ridotto in your honor \ " 

" O, no ! O, no ! Mrs. Woffington, we would not be 



Beauty. 79 

unreasonable ; but we have received an invitation to 
the Castle to-night, and we assure you we have not a 
stitch of decent clothes for our backs. We believe you 
have a fellow-feeling for poor young women who have 
their fortunes to make, and we would be your debtors 
for life if you would but lend us, for this one night, a 
pair of your worst gowns ! 

" My worst ! it is the best in my possession you shall 
sport till you 're tired. It is a black shame that you 
should be in want of them ; it is a pleasure to think of 
their being so well filled. The sparks' hearts will be 
clean broken to-night. I need n't mind for myself; the 
best people will be at the Castle ; and if any critics 
bother to remark that Roxalana is not so fine as she 
should be, I '11 give them half a dozen more courtesies 
and smiles. You see, girls, when I 'm out of pearls, 
I make it up in smiles " ; and Peg turned on her guests 
with one of those radiant smiles in which lips and 
teeth, and lovely bent brows over glancing eyes, all 
laughed together. Ah, Peg, if you had only known the 
worth of your smiles ! 

How good Mrs. Woffington was ! They were her 
bounden servants, — till the kindness was forgotten. 
In the mean time Peg was screaming for her servant, 
and tossing over the contents of her great boxes, and 
casting before them an ample choice. " What shall it 
be, girls % The plain pink paduasoy, or the blue flow- 
ered silk % You should know your own mind. You 've 
heard what the Beefsteak Club pretend was my com- 
ment on women's conversation, — ' All silks and scan- 
dal.' But what shall I offer you, my dear?" turning to 



80 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

Sally Fortescue ; " for I spy as plain as paint in your 
little face that you read the old poets, Shakespeare and 
Spenser, and the Bible, and talk of them, and the poor, 
and your work, and your blessed father and mother. 
What can I have the honor of giving you, my dear 
Miss Sally?" 

" She does not need a loan," explained the Gun- 
nings ; "she has her own brocade as new as a gold 
guinea, but she does not want to shine ; she 's wild to 
break with her Ladyship, who caught her down in the 
provinces, and is carrying her away to London to make 
her fortune right on end, — marry her off-hand to a rich 
English squire or grand mylord. It is quite thrown 
away on Sally Fortescue ; she would prefer to run 
back to Deanston, work in the garden, ride Dennis 
O'Rourke, help her mother and her father, and all her 
folk, if she could only contrive to give her Ladyship 
the genteel slip." 

" What has come over you, child ! " demanded Peg, 
in amaze, arrested in her vigorous operations, and re- 
maining stock-still on her knees, surrounded by costly 
stuffs of all the dyes of the rainbow. 

Sally blushed a more vivid red, — nearer a sweet- 
william this time, but looking all the prettier in the 
high color in company with her clustering chestnut- 
brown hair and meditative eyes. 

" I 'd liefer stay, Mrs. Woffington ; perhaps it is van- 
ity, but I think they miss me at home. My father and 
mother gave me up with reluctance ; I am of use there, 
I might as well be a butterfly here, and I'll not continue 
a butterfly," protested Sally, pettishly. " I am not fit for 



Beauty. 8 1 

it ; I was born to be a sober, working girl, and my father 
promised me that I should write his letters this year, and 
my mother was to intrust me with the household, linen, 
and, O, I was teaching Jemmy, the crow-boy, to read, 
and he was coming on so finely ! It is not so bad here 
in Dublin, for I have my old aunt to look after, and she 
wearies for me in the evenings to play her game of crib- 
bage with her ; but I '11 be of no use at all at all to her 
Ladyship, who has her own young woman, and will not 
even allow me to sit up for her, and sew at her embroid- 
ery frame. I '11 pine away, or I '11 get into mischief, 
and forget my duty, and lose my peace. Indeed, I 
must travel home again." 

" You good child," vowed Peg, with moist eyes, " I '11 
tell you what I 've read pat to your purpose in some of 
my foolish play-books. An Italian saint left his estates 
to his brother, and retired into the cloister. His broth- 
er accepted the gift, but remarked, sorrowfully, ' Ah ! 
brother, you 've taken heaven, and you 've only given me 
earth/ I wish I had that speech to make to-night, and 
I 'd cause some heart-strings to tingle ; although the 
stupid men and women who owned them, starting and 
staring, pale and disordered, would not be able to tell 
what ailed them. I'm sorry, I'm mortal sorry, that 
I 've nothing fit for your acceptance, but you '11 give 
me your hand before we part." 

"You are over kind, Mrs. WofTmgton," responded 
the young girl, all aflame with answering modesty and 
gratitude : " you who are so charitable to the poor, 
not so much as asking them when they 've washed 
their hands. You are the first player that I have 
4* F 



82 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

known ; but I admire you, Mrs. Woffington ; I love 
you as much as any sweet soul out of my own dear 
home " ; and Sally, in a fit of enthusiasm, stooped 
down and kissed Peg Woffington. 

Peg was much moved ; she drew back, and covered 
her face with her hands for a moment, and spoke hastily, 
in a half-smothered voice : " My dear, I 'm not angry ; 
but you don't know what you 've done ; you don't know 
how your lips feel to such a woman of the world as I 
am. Girls'! girls ! it is a wicked world ; perhaps I 
should not help you to enter it ; but there cannot be 
more than one wise little one, and I 'm glad she kissed 
me ; I 'm glad of it, though one day the remembrance 
may burn me to the bone." 

That night's work decided the events of three lives. 
The Gunnings went to the Castle ball in the borrowed 
plumes of Peg Woffington, and literally dazzled the 
assembly by the fairness of their faces. Their success 
might have intoxicated them ; but, as a rule, I don't 
find intoxication on the books of Court beauties. It is 
rather lofty and joyous elation, joined to the greed of a 
thief for praise and power. The sisters took by storm 
the listless imagination of her Ladyship, who liked to 
be roused ; and desired to convey with her across the 
Channel an Irish gem or gems to adorn her working- 
closet, and her back drawing-room. Sally Fortescue 
was suffered to excuse herself from filling the glittering, 
cold, hard setting, and the Gunnings consented, with 
all their hearts, to occupy the gaping vacancy. The 
famous beauties carried out such a raid, and bore off 
such spoil as only Irish beauties have twice in half a 






Beauty. 83 

century wrested from close-fisted British hands. They 
reached the toppling summit of their ambition, until 
the blood-royal alone defied the witchery of their sway ; 
the strawberry-leaves, baubles next to the sceptre, were 
again and again laid at their feet mincing to conquest. 
Verily, the Duke who claimed the wide moors and 
parks of Clydesdale, and the proud peaks of Goatfell ; 
and great Macallummore, the Lord of the Isles, sub- 
mitted to wear the same flowery chains. The Gunnings 
were the true queens of society. To them both wealth 
and rank went a begging in their time, as they them- 
selves had gone a begging to Peg Wofnngton. Both 
sisters became famous women of quality. One sister 
was twice a duchess. Luckier, (yes, lucky is the word 
we play upon,) luckier lasses never entered London 
without a penny ! 

Sally Fortescue returned to the big house of Deanston 
as she had left it. The Squire could not resist a hurrah 
of glee, though he affected to shake his white head wrath- 
fully. The Squire's lady lectured her soundly, but she 
held her child to her bosom, and from that moment she 
renounced the spectacles which she had lately assumed, 
and which bestowed so peculiarly precise and pedantic 
an air on her comely, matronly face. Sally bloomed on 
awhile light-hearted, but soon grew sedate, and became 
the only stay of her parents. There was a Shane O'Dyer, 
one of the rank crop of gentleman-farmers, who rode and 
danced for a time after Sally, but he was only a gentle- 
man-farmer of some third cousin of a proprietor. In 
one of the first eruptions of the rebellion his stack-yard 
was burnt, his cattle houghed, his hedges broken down, 



84 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

his cabin laid open to the wind and weather. He never 
recovered the injury ; for he was not a man of educated 
faculties and disciplined resources, but only upright and 
honest, frank and kind, and a mighty hunter. The match 
was not to be dreamt of then, though Sally was so gentle 
a girl, and young O'Dyer so manly and fond, and possi- 
bly the brightest young man in these quarters. It was 
believed the girl took the loss to heart, although not so 
much as he did. Indeed the poor young farmer, ruined 
now beyond redemption, rode a little more desperately 
than before, swang from side to side in his saddle with 
weakness, sat shivering in his wet clothes in his tumble- 
down house, began to burn and melt away with fever, 
crept as often as he could to the hillock which com- 
manded a view of the big house of Deanston, and died 
one fine day in his prime. There was nothing seen on 
Sally, except that her bloom went off at once and alto- 
gether ; she who had been so sweet a woman in her 
blushes was ever aftenvards a sweet, white-faced woman, 
who had laid up her brocade in lavender, and only 
wore sprigged poplins and muslins on Sundays and 
Saturdays. 

Peg Woffington had run her course, her meteor 
course. Alas, alas ! so near the sun the one day ; so 
far off in the blackness of darkness the next. Her 
generous impulses, her kindly acts were all blurred and 
obliterated, like stars behind inky clouds, in the progress 
of a life flighty and erring, and degenerating often into 
riot and brutality. But Peg's fitful light did not leap 
out in the murky night. The poor soul stopped short 



Beauty, 85 

in her godless, unrighteous career ; she suddenly cried 
out that she saw the broad way and the pit to which 
it led, and felt herself sinking to destruction. But she 
had also a glimpse of the narrow road mounting up to 
the heights still open to her. How awful it was for her 
light, dancing feet to retrace the long and weary waste 
thick set with thorns ! What mocking voices and ma- 
lignant faces tortured her on the backward journey she 
could have told ; but she grasped the rod and leant 
upon the staff; and, sincere, meek, and shame-faced in 
her great repentance, surely she crossed the gulf, forded 
the stream, and reached the shore. One old, old ac- 
quaintance, reading of Peg Woffington's conversion and 
repentance in the idle gossip of a stray newsprint of the 
day, knelt down on her saint's knees, and thanked God 
for it in her saint's humility and gladness. 

In the cracked city of Paris, not yet mended after 
the French Revolution, two English beauties divided 
the enthusiasm of a French audience. One of them 
was but a Bristol crystal, a paltry parvenu, a vulgar city 
dame, to whom the charmed circle of Almack's was 
closed. The other was but an Irish diamond ; but 
then it was an Irish diamond of the first water ; and 
think what this diamond felt to be compared by the 
shallow French to the Bristol stone lacquered in Brum- 
magem ! a diamond that had given back the courtliest 
rays, whose lustre was the perfection of refinement, and 
whose sensitiveness to impressions was rather increased 
by the fact that it was a doubtful diamond, and not an 
assured diamond of the mines of Golconda. And the 
showy-tasted, rapidly-deciding French had not the dis- 



86 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

crimination to perceive the difference, indeed preferred 
the fatter, fairer, sprightlier of die two ladies or dia- 
monds. They say the other died of it, the diamond ! 
This lucky Gunning died of mortification and spite, if 
it was not of the effects of the paint with which she had 
taken to plastering and daubing the fading face once so 
radiant in its bloom. I see her in her dressing-closet 
whimpering or scolding, and laying on the poison till 
she sinks back under one of the attacks of faintness 
which overcome her. I see her in the theatre or opera 
engaged in the wretched battle, biting her lips and 
writhing as if stung, beneath her outward calm, when 
the superannuated marquis or puppy prince is paraded 
in the box of the exulting rival. I see her in a moment 
brought face to face with a grinning skeleton ; her 
stagger and shriek fill my eyes and ears. I dare look 
no longer. O, mean and miserable death, tragic in its 
meanness since it is the dismissal of the slighted, de- 
graded soul into an unknown region of retribution ! 

Far away in a castle, nigh a palace in its pride of 
place by the western shores, surrounded by retainers 
more deferential and devoted than ever were Saxon 
subjects, a great duchess entertained an English scholar 
and his complacent compagnon de voyage. The great 
lady had wit enough to be affable to the great English- 
man ; but to the little Scotchman, even under her own 
castle-roof, she condescended to show the cold shoulder. 
The great lady was so touchy that she could not bring 
herself to forget and forgive some frivolous offence of 
the meddling little man's. Thus the rose-leaf that ruf- 
fled the sybarite's couch was matched by the trifle that 



Beauty. 8 7 

could fret the petted mind of a great lady, whose story- 
had gone like a fairy tale, whose destiny had equalled 
Cinderella's in splendor. Such pomp and such irrita- 
bility, how grand, how irksome ! I have said luckier 
lasses than the Gunnings never entered London. Do 
you think their luck was so much worth having after 
all, when the luckiest of the Gunnings could not find 
enough magnanimity to pardon a foolish man's folly'? 
Was this all their luck brought them to % Poor Lady 
Lechmere was so weak as to die of the pin pricks of 
vanity and another woman's triumph ; and this great 
duchess showed a peevish face beneath the strawberry- 
leaves, and carried an empty heart, in which rankled 
the smallest affront, though that heart beat within the 
state and dignity of proud castle-walls. Why, a meek 
and quiet spirit, in a body clad in hodden gray, with no 
better shelter than " a clay biggin," were, if not luckier, 
a thousand-fold more blest. 

In the heart of Ireland, away in the corner of a big, 
rickety house, dwindled down into the dwelling of an 
agent, whose family occupied it in part, a middle-aged, 
serene, dainty single woman was, without the least 
conscious assertion of authority or influence, looked up 
to and tended by the whole household. Although the 
least domineering of women, she relished her sweet, 
natural supremacy ; liked dearly to confer favors in the 
shape of caudles and cakes, and shapes of frills and 
caps, and was not above receiving gifts in return ; nor 
above stepping in next door to look wistfully round the 
old bare walls, to make much of, and be made much 
of, by her simple, cordial neighbors. In the sanctuary 



88 Papers for Thoughtful Girls, 

of her own two rooms, that old lady — the prettiest 
picture of faded gentility that I can think of — used to 
indulge herself sometimes in turning over drawers and 
cabinets containing relics of the past. They were not 
worth it \ her own antiquated brocade, the tarnished 
gilt buttons of the Squire, the soiled pearl hoop of the 
Squire's lady, the hunting-whip which Shane O'Dyer 
gained at a hunting-match, and insisted on depositing 
at Deanston, and which his heirs had likewise decided 
on leaving at Deanston, because it was where Shane, 
poor fellow ! would have wished it to remain. The 
articles were intrinsically valueless ; the very associa- 
tions which they recalled were little worth in them- 
selves ; but these were tender eyes that gazed on them, 
and the longer they gazed, the more loving, and yet 
the more contented and clear they became \ for it does 
not so much matter that there have been foiled hopes 
and forlorn days here, when the future, with its fulfil- 
ment and its restoration, is close at the door. Nothing 
matters then, save that you have dealt fairly both by 
yourself and your brother in the old Italian saint's 
bargain ; that you have taken heaven, and have not 
put him off with earth, but have sought that he should 
share with you in the portion infinite and eternal. 




IV. 



FAVOR. 




AVOR is vain. Yes, if it waxes a sover- 
eign or an idol : esteemed in moderation, 
it proves an excellent ally. Few of us are 
incapable of winning favor, and few are 
solicitous to gain it, unless it be from base and sordid 
motives. Fortunately, however, flattery seems formally 
on the decline too. Toad-eaters, like blue-stockings, 
are antiquarian relics ; even humble companions exist 
in greatest numbers in novels where they manage a 
good deal of intricate machinery, as the duenna does 
in the Spanish drama. 

Favor — -the liking of our associates, the respect 
of our acquaintances, the confidence of our poorer 
brethren, the chief secret of our social influence — is 
surely worth the seeking. At one time it was elabo- 
rately sought. The notion of an attractive woman 
always included sweetness of temper and an obliging 
humor. The old favorites, such as Mrs. Delany, were 
models of politeness, and of real not feigned interest 
in their fellows. Fiction took the tone from public 



90 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

opinion ; and every heroine, pensive or sprightly, had 
a host of friends, and was distinguished by her multi- 
tudinous cares for them, and, in return, their grateful 
devotion to her. The necessity became, doubtless, a 
plea for popularity, and waxed artificial and over- 
strained ; but its absence in the present day is suffi- 
ciently striking and objectionable. 

Biography and fiction now abound in good, noble, 
sincere, benevolent women, who are yet singularly iso- 
lated in character and position \ who, from peculiarity 
of temper or principle, repel rather than attract their 
kind ; who- begin life by scorning the opinion of the 
world, — not the wicked world, or the great world, but 
the little world of their equals and acquaintances ; who 
will neither bear nor forbear, except as martyrs, and 
who constitute it rather a merit to be reckoned odd, 
harsh, careless, cynical. Their sole available links to 
their fellow-creatures depend on their generally absorb- 
ing affection for their families, and their laudable and 
untiring care for the poor. But surely our blood-rela- 
tions should not engross us, and the poor are not our 
only neighbors. In some respects our companions 
and fellows in the road of life have a broad claim on 
us \ and it is with that claim that this paper particu- 
larly deals. 

In the old-fashioned days of our grandmothers and 
great-grandmothers, there was a great profession and 
practice of friendship, breathing of shepherdesses' hats, 
clematis bowers, and syllabubs. " The companions of 
youth " were then more frequently " the friends of old 
age." Now friendship is a thing which, it is to be 



Favor. 9 1 

feared, many young girls don't think of, except as a 
convenience and an amusement ; and when the con- 
venience and amusement pass, the bond is summarily 
dissolved. As to sticking to an old friend, who, like 
the crown of England once in a day, may be " hid in a 
bush/' cherishing her, bearing with her, adhering to her 
long after she has ceased to be prosperous, advanta- 
geous, or even very enlivening, — alas ! how seldom it is 
well done, how often it is not done at all. And the 
want of this sincerity and fidelity lends a peculiar hol- 
lowness and meanness to many girls' friendships, de- 
teriorates their riatures, degrades their whple beings. 
These nominal friendships are most frequently seen in 
false, pretentious sets and families, full of vain and pal- 
try ambitions ; but they are also seen where they ought 
in consistency never to show their faces. Ah me ! to 
see the young girl, when she ought to be freshest-heart- 
ed, cunningly courting the girl she considers the best- 
born or the richest in her school or society ; and woe 
is me ! for the heartlessness with which she will turn 
from this queen for another who has more court patron- 
age or a wider territory. 

In soliciting or neglecting favor there are necessarily 
two extremes to be avoided ; the constant pursuit of 
company, and the determined avoidance of company. 
The hankering after society, the inveterate coveting of 
a stranger's presence in the family group, the running 
after this or that neighbor, — are largely the results of 
thoughtlessness, emptiness, and silliness. But remem- 
ber the two last cannot be cured, they can only be leav- 
ened and salted, if possible, with good. In Jane Austen's 



92 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

novel of Persuasion, Anne Elliot early sees the impro- 
priety of the perpetual unceremonious visits, the daily 
" looking in " between the hall and the cottage of the 
Musgroves senior and the Musgroves junior ; but she 
judges rightly that she cannot correct them, that her 
part is to render them as harmless and peaceable as 
possible. Such an outside life produces the effects 
seen on continental nations : a broad dash of national 
character, with scanty individuality or intensity of any 
faculty or feeling ; an absence of much fond, true fel- 
lowship ; a very light harvest of the human heart. But 
you must never forget that, with regard to some disposi- 
tions, this light harvest is the only one of which they 
are capable, and what is left to us is to try hard to have 
what is of it good, and not mixed with blight and mil- 
dew. A perpetual dropping of visits is like gossip, which 
must receive very varied treatment. A great deal is 
written in a wholesale way against gossip, yet we cannot 
resist doing honor to Mrs. Stowe for having honestly, 
cheerily, and charitably defended it. Malicious gossip is 
evil speaking, and is breaking a commandment, — away 
with it ! Kindly and thoughtful gossip is incidental to 
our interest in and contact with our race, and is an 
abundant source of dramatic perception. Talk of 
fashions, habits, accidents, economy, babies, and the 
weather is the limpid flow of a large number of minds ; 
and shame upon any mind, however strong or however 
stored, which cannot readily relax to it and luxuriate in 
it. There is nothing common or unclean, there is noth- 
ing really trifling which affects humanity ; the greatest 
will be the tenderest. Shakespeare was a universal 



Favor. 93 

sympathizer. Sidney Smith could chat with every man, 
woman, and child in his parish, and be honestly en- 
gaged with them, and so the acute critic and the in 
veterate joker was beloved with an affluence of affec- 
tion by high and low, grave and gay, young and old. 
And, by the by, there is an affectation of condescension 
which makes curious reservations. A great lady will be 
familiar with a peasant's wife on her milk and meal, and 
kail-yard, when she will not understand a merchant's 
wife's anxiety to have the courses of her dinner served 
according to established rule and precedent, or to get 
a carriage-sweep cut out of her pretty flower-garden. 
Clever men will boast rather of playing with children, 
when they will scout their plodding mothers or prag- 
matic fathers. This is far enough from the courtesy to 
all men ; the delicate divining-rod, which pierces every 
temper and constitution, and finds there still something 
that is human, something that may be divine. 

Charles Kingsley, in writing of the good-will and 
fervor with which women become missionaries to the 
lower classes, asks, But who will become a missionary to 
the girls of the middle-class, to the giddy, gadding girls, 
the coarse-minded, spiteful girls, the proud, discontented 
girls who help to fill their ranks % In the forms of edu- 
cation, — the grammars. and text-books,- — the girls of the 
middle-class are as well trained, and sometimes better 
disciplined, than the girls of the higher classes. In the 
spirit of education, in simplicity of refinement, in wider 
society, in foreign travel, in greater familiarity with both 
nature and art, — the girls of the higher ranks rise far 
above the girls of the middle-class. But if " a touch of 



94 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

nature makes the whole world kin," a touch of grace 
does still . more to promote an advancing and indis- 
soluble union. A good girl in the middle-class, labor- 
ing to have a godly spirit, an upright mind, loving ways, 
wholesome tastes, has this superiority over her sister ; 
she is hardier, more independent, and more original. 
She is not so propped up by artificial aids ; she is not so 
much the individual of a class, carried away by a class 
movement, full of class prepossessions and prejudices, 
High Church because she is high-bred, and showing a 
great and laudable charity when she can act gently and 
tolerantly to Low Church and Dissent. And what a 
young girl in the middle-class may be, above all, to her 
companions ; how she may promote higher tastes, how 
she may put down lower aims, how she may insensibly 
and unobtrusively strengthen and enlighten the weak 
and ignorant, by removing erroneous impressions, con- 
firming fleeting impulses, and, possibly, at last, assisting 
in the great deed of casting the anchor within the veil, 
— all this renders the question of favor a serious and 
lofty one. 

The writer would be the first to allow, sorrowfully, 
that there are many good and true women who, from 
constitutional reserve and diffidence, or from some un- 
conquerable defect of tone and carriage, feel a blank, as 
it were, between their associates' instincts and their 
own, and never attain this favor. Be it so, if it is not 
their own fault. There are other weapons to work 
with than mere favor or liking; and occasionally the 
most passionate attachment of a life, the deepest-rooted 
influence of a human history, may be drawn forth and 



Favor. 95 

exhibited at last by one who won no favor, but the 
reverse, in the beginning. 

But those who have natural spirit, sweetness, bright- 
ness, persuasiveness, are vested with a social lever, and 
ought to use it heartily to raise the general body of 
their society. Of course to do any good with this favor, 
it must be exerted with wisdom, Jong-suffering, and, 
most emphatically, with simplicity and humility. But 
grand and sweet as these accompanying qualities are, 
they are certainly to be found if sought at their source. 

Judge for yourselves, then, whether should a good 
girl sit in her room reading a book of whatever sort it 
may be, which she is conscious improves her, meditat- 
ing upon her day's lesson, her duty, the kingdom of 
nature or the kingdom of art ; say should she do this, 
or walk abroad with the foolish friend who is chagrined 
and depressed at the disappointment of a love affair 
with some one still more shallow and foolish than her- 
self? If the staid but gracious Jane or Anne will listen 
and condole, the Dulcibella has a fancy that she would 
rather go fern-hunting or leaf-gathering just now, than 
shopping or walking in the direction of the railway ter- 
minus, the pier, the coach station, or the cricket-ground, 
with her sisters all chattering without regard to her, or 
laughing at her for her pure folly. On the other hand, 
perhaps Dulcibella has a glimmering of an idea that 
she might care to hear about Jane's or Anne's engage- 
ments, their work, their books, their religious and char- 
itable societies, just because she is heart-sick of her own 
round of life, and she would draw a breath of another 
atmosphere. Who knows but that single draught may, 



96 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

with a blessing, refresh and quicken her jaded, torpid, 
trifling spirit ? 

Whether should a good girl never stir from home of 
an evening, even though she devotes an hour or two to 
a coarse but comfortable Dorcas garment, though she 
jokes with papa and kisses mamma, and flatly contra- 
dicts Aunt Janet, — whether should she stay thus at 
home, or join the party where there is little pleasure or 
perceptible profit for her, but where her presence may 
keep down some slander and some levity, and perhaps, 
if one has great faith, bring about some sound sense, 
and some genuine blitheness ? There is nothing more 
commendable and enjoyable in Anne Grant of Lag- 
gan's moralizing, than her early conviction that her 
own love of retirement, and what was then called 
elegant sentiment, and her aversion to commonplace 
society and commonplace pursuits, proceeded from a 
feeling very nearly akin to selfishness. 

To act beneficially on our neighbors, by our power 
of inspiring favor, we must keep under our own vanity \ 
we must be very careful that philanthropy has the place 
of love of popularity ; we must be earnest to maintain 
a pure heart and a single eye. But first and last, as 
the head and tail of our commission, we must reverence 
our neighbor ; we must not think of ourselves more 
highly than we ought to think, and while we measure 
her by ourselves, we must make every allowance for 
different growth and culture, opposite motive and temp- 
tation. While we finger the mote in her eye, we must 
remember, with awe, that there may be a beam in our 
own, and pray that we may see the great obstruction, 



Favor. 97 

and work first on our own grievous infirmity, with all 
our own might and Another's might, ere we lend to our 
fellow-creature our gentle, humble, compassionate as- 
sistance. We must reverence our neighbor, think 
well of her, bear long with her, be pitiful to her, and 
never, to our dying day, presume to judge or condemn 
her. 

If there is an offence more detestable than another, 
it is to be foul-tongued with regard to those with whom 
we voluntarily keep company, with whom we share 
bread and salt, to whom we speak with accents of good- 
will, even of affection. If there is a thing to make a 
man or woman sit down wellnigh despairing of human 
kind, it is to join in a cordial greeting between friends, 
to hear of mutual benefits conferred, nay, sacrifices in- 
curred, and when one has parted from another, to find 
the remaining person coolly and coarsely pull the ab- 
sent one to pieces, expose his or her frailties, rake up or 
conjure into being his or her meannesses, frauds, vices. 
To discover young girls thus dealing with their school- 
fellows and bosom-friends, to be a witness to the fond- 
ling tone, the ready caress, and then to be forced to 
listen to the narrative of how stingy Sophia is ; how 
conceited ; how she did not share a farthing of her 
pocket-money, or the Indian muslins, sent her by her 
uncle the judge, with her orphan cousin ; how she will 
not give copies of her songs, or shapes of her collars 
and cuffs to anybody ; and how long she takes to dress, 
and what suspicions there are of her using pearl pow- 
der, a chit like Sophia ! - — the disloyalty and treachery 
are enough to make an angel groan, enough to justify 
5 g 



98 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

half of what has been written of women's duplicity and 

malice. , 

I have written chiefly of favor as it may be exerted 
over equals in years, position, and sex ; but, of course, 
it extends much further. The natural shrewdness which 
so captivates crusty Mr. and Mrs. Benedict, and ren- 
ders them a thought milder and more reasonable ; the 
merry tongue which causes poor querulous Miss Vir- 
ginia to forget half her pains, and to laugh as she was 
wont to do so easily when she was a hale and strong 
young thing ; the frankness and consideration which 
makes Susan the maid think twice as much of the flan- 
nel hood for her bedridden grandmother, the great 
cockade to pin on the christening cap of her baby- 
brother, or the smart ribbon for her own cap, which 
half reconciles her to the hated appendage the cap 
itself, and almost induces her to determine to mind 
Jane about not loitering at the street-door, or lingering 
on an errand, -all may have their harvest, their boun- 
tiful, beautiful harvest. 

" WANDERING DARLING." 

THEY were a grave, gray family in a small squire's 
house, near a country town. They had suffered 
wrong and sorrow ; it does not signify what, but it suf- 
ficed to drive them in upon themselves, and to with- 
draw them from society. Living thus alone, they lost 
heart even in themselves. They allowed their pretty 
house, close by a stream, - a house that Izaak Wal- 



Favor. 99 

ton might have loved ; a two-storied white house, 
with a porch and an abundance of woodbine and trav- 
eller's joy, — to get overgrown, dark, damp, and posi- 
tively unwholesome. They planted no new flowers in 
the borders, and the old degenerated into mere buttons 
of flowers ; they allowed the old avenue to sink into a 
miry, unfenced country road. The same was the case 
with their persons ; they wore old-fashioned coats and 
gowns, always of the same colors ; and these colors 
waned ever fainter and dimmer, as if the persons 
who selected them, like owls shrinking from the light, 
felt all that was , bright gradually become more and 
more unsuitable to them. They attended no public 
place save the church, and the vicar was a man well 
up in years, who never struck out a novelty in his ser- 
mon ; and they read in no book-club or library. Yet 
they were not old in years. Thomas, the squire, and 
Mildred, his elder sister, were only middle-aged, and 
Lizzie was fifteen years younger, if you could apply any 
form of the word young to a person who had grown up 
in such an atmosphere. Their name was Knight, and 
it afforded an opportunity of punning to all the wits of 
the neighboring town of Craythorpe.- For certain, the 
possessors of the Brook farm had mistaken the spelling 
of their cognomen ; it ought to have been represented 
in bank-books and game certificates without the chival- 
rous, fantastic K. 

Only one individual at Craythorpe visited the Knights 
of the Brook, and he was a Knight also, though a 
Knight springing from a different source. His father 
and mother did not share his entrance into the chill, 



ioo Papers for Thoughtful Girls, 

shady house. They had been mixed up with the cause 
of the Knights' retirement from the world ; rightly or 
wrongly, the Knights of the Brook blamed the Knights 
of Craythorpe for an explosion and exposure which was 
very bitter to their proud, reserved natures, and a family 
estrangement followed. But no family estrangement 
could prevent Matthew Knight, the doctor's son in 
Craythorpe, from being the heir-at-law in entail of his 
cousin Thomas Knight, the small squire of the Brook, 
and some intercourse had taken place in consequence ; 
an intercourse beginning in lawyers' offices, and ending 
in the scarcely less cold, formal, old-fashioned drawing- 
room of the Brook. Thomas Knight, though a morose 
man, was just in his dealings, and he did not wish to 
visit the iniquity of the father on the child. Young 
Matthew Knight became attached to the Brook from 
love of contradiction, a sense of future possession, 
and a dogged esteem for his cousins. With Matthew 
Knight entered the sole glimpse of the laughing, weep- 
ing, loving, struggling world that reached the Brook. 
There had been contest there once, but there was calm 
now, a dead calm. Lizzie Knight, in her close-fitting 
gray gown, with the sleeves buttoned tight at the wrists, 
her hair pressed to her face, passed behind her ears, and 
screwed into a knot behind, believed Matthew Knight 
the impersonation of manly dash and daring. She 
herself was a flower in the shade ; a stinted, scentless 
flower, with mere traces of fair proportions and free 
fragrance ; but she had never been so conscious that 
her life was a species of vegetation, as when Matthew 
Knight was studying anatomy in France and Germany, 



Favor. 101 

and no visitor from Craythorpe disturbed the utter 
monotony of the Brook. Yet Lizzie said little or 
nothing to Matthew, and was the least demonstrative of 
his undemonstrative cousins. After all, it was strange 
that she, who might have been a nun for all she knew 
of society, and was as demure as a nun in her manners, 
was fully persuaded that there were other and very dik 
ferent spheres from the niche she occupied. It was 
not from the conversation of Thomas and Mildred ; it 
was not from the prattle of old servants, — old servants 
are gone-by indulgences ; the Brook servants were all 
young, and constantly changing their places, though 
complaining of nothing beyond the intolerable dulness 
and the ineffable distance that separated them from 
their master and mistresses. Lizzie's misgivings and 
inspirations must have been instincts, and they were 
deep down in her constitution ; no one would have 
suspected her of entertaining them. Lizzie Knight 
was judged the most out-of-the-world, tiresome, and 
conceited of all the Knights. 

Dr. Matthew Knight — Dr. Matthew he was termed, 
in contradistinction to the old doctor, his father — 
was no good sample of masculine light-heartedness 
and geniality. He had a share of the, constitutional 
gloom of the Knights ; he was an only child, and he 
had a combative temper. He was one of those men 
who are belligerent from their birth, and who, while 
they are too reasonable or good to refuse to be dis- 
ciplined, contest every step of the progress, punch with 
their heads, square with their fists, shove with their 
feet, throughout the process. He disputed with his 



102 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

mother over the catechism, — certainly she was a dog- 
matic theologian ; and he was never chastised by 
his father without shaking his head defiantly in the 
very act of begging the paternal pardon. Now, he 
stormed over his patients while he cured them, and 
showed himself perfectly rampant in every public affair 
in the burgh in which he was called to take an interest. 

A good deal of a blast, saturnine and stinging, was 
Matthew Knight, still there was a breezy life in the 
masses of dark hair above his square forehead, and he 
was not so lost to light and gayety as not to appear 
sometimes at the Brook with a blush rose or a striped 
carnation in his button-hole, and Lizzie had heard, that 
though he did not dance, he went out occasionally to 
the quarters where young people most do congregate, 
and that he had his share of admiration, as every 
manly character run riot will scarcely fail to obtain. 
His greatest evidence of vigor and buoyance was in 
the horses he rode and the dogs he kept. He always 
rode spirited horses, and he galloped with a keen zest 
for the exercise, which the dog at his heels shared. 

It was an autumn day, one of those mellow, gorgeous 
days which, like autumn flowers, sometimes excel in 
splendor. Old earth was brilliant and sunshiny even 
in her decay, like a good workman who is pithy and 
jocular over the fulfilment of his work, and puts his 
best foot foremost at the last, as if to prove what a 
perfect man he is in his craft, — how much beauty and 
refreshment for body and soul lurk under his patience 
and skill. It was a day when country-people troop to 
towns to spend their wages, and cheery voices sound 



Favor. 103 

from laden carts and half-thatched stacks. The Brook 
only looked the sadder for the bright luxuriance and 
gratitude of the world. The cart-road, between the 
lines of trees, leading down from the high road, was all 
rutted into furrows and troughs, and wellnigh impass- 
able ; but as no wheels drove there except in broad 
daylight on Sunday, where was the use of filling up the 
hollows and smoothing down the heights, far less of 
mending them with road-metal % The Knights' bones 
were well accustomed to being shaken, and there was 
still a bridle-road left for Dr. Matthew. The garden 
was dark and disconsolate. There were only the yel- 
lowing leaves of the plums, and reddening leaves of 
the pears, with a few apples, dark-green, and puckered 
together like old vinegar-faces, to lend it varying dyes. 

Lizzie Knight was in the house alone ; Mildred was 
taking her usual afternoon walk through the fields to 
look for and bring home Thomas ; one servant was ill ; 
pining as she called it, and gone to her mother's for a 
change ; the other had been sent on an errand to the 
town, and was committing the fault so flagrant and 
incurable in the Brook servants, of dallying to the last 
moment in her messaging, loath to return to her sombre 
kitchen. The clock was heard, with its irksome, im- 
portunate tick, tick, that forlorn substitute for human 
voices, when there came a ring to the jingling old bell. 
Lizzie leapt on her seat, — so few people rung the bell. 
Dr. Matthew used the knocker, while those persistent 
men " of gentlemanly address," travelling for all and 
sundry, had long given up the Brook as a bad specu- 
lation, a lost old place, which never, by the remotest, 
luckiest accident, wanted anything new. 



Favor. 105 

me come out and try my chance. It was a pity not to 
seize the opportunity of a meeting with my cousins, and 
I thought it would be nice to take you by surprise. 
Papa is only fifty miles off, and is to sleep there, so if 
my visit is inconvenient, you can turn me about my 
business, and I will be able to overtake him before he 
starts to-morrow morning. But first you must look at 
my credentials, papa's letter I mean, to satisfy yourself 
that I am not an impostor," and at the word, this Ciss 
laughed a gleeful, musical laugh, as if a horrible misfor- 
tune, which would have made Lizzie's hair bristle, and 
her skin clam, would have proved to her one of the 
best jokes in the world. 

Ladies, young and old, beware of surprises. They 
are but doubtful trials to the nerves and comfort of 
fond, faithful friendship ; to unknown, unseen kinship, 
they are mostly like that impertinent slap in the back 
which Cowper has contemned. 

Lizzie begged Ciss Berry to come in, and faintly sig- 
nified that she was glad to see her, while everything 
span round with her at so unheard of a conjuncture. 
What would Thomas and Mildred say % What would 
they do with her 1 How long would she mean to stay ] 
Was she Ciss Berry? all whirled through Lizzie's dis- 
tracted brains. The last distressing uncertainty soon 
settled itself. Lizzie was timid and fluttered ; she was 
one to have her pocket picked any day ; she could have 
been easily decoyed into leaving a disreputable person 
in the back, kitchen with the silver spoons ; but it was 
impossible for her to look into the face before her, and 
fail to see that it was transparent as the day. If Lizzie 
5* • 



io6 Papers for Thought/id Girls. 

had ever read Coleridge, she might have been relieved 
to see her guest cross the threshold without assistance \ 
but Ciss did not go far, she turned round in the little 
matted hall. 

" Are you sure I 'm not putting you about ] " she re- 
iterated, with a pair of friendly, domestic, girlish blue 
eyes, standing there on the stiff straw matting pleading 
against herself. " I am not a bit tired ; I have only 
travelled a hundred and thirty miles to-day \ I can 
walk to the railway again without the least fatigue, it 
will be quite a pleasure ; I had lunch at the station 
already, I assure you I had, Cousin Lizzie : for I was 
as hungry as a working-man, with having a run on the 
rail so early in the morning. I would be so vexed to 
disturb you, though I should like to make your ac- 
quaintance. 

" No, no, you must not go away \ not at least until 
Thomas and Mildred have seen you," responded Lizzie, 
with a shy, halting attempt at kindness, putting her thin, 
straight-lined hand lightly on the girl's shoulder. 

" Very well, Cousin Lizzie," answered the visitor 
acquiescently, turning round, clasping one arm round 
Lizzie's neck, and kissing her with a warm girl's mouth. 

Poor Lizzie blushed all over again, one of those pur- 
plish, watery blushes. Nobody kissed another at the 
Brook. Thomas and Mildred had not kissed her above 
twice in their lives ; once when there had been inexplic- 
able misery in the house, which no child could fathom, 
though Lizzie had experienced a scared perception of it 
which she remembered and understood long afterwards. 
Then, Thomas and Mildred had come into her room 



Favor. 107 

one night, and kissed her solemnly, one after another, 
with blanched lips, as if they adopted her into their 
communion, and registered a vow in which she was in- 
cluded. At another time when she was thrown from her 
pony, and had lain for ten minutes insensible, Thomas 
and Mildred kissed her in an effusion of thankfulness. 
Of course every one is grateful and glad over an escape 
from a dangerous accident and its sad consequences. 
Dr. Matthew on this occasion held her hand after he 
had ceased to feel her pulse, and involuntarily smoothed 
her hair when he had done moistening her brow, and 
no man could accuse Dr. Matthew of a caressing ten- 
dency. 

It seemed quite a matter of course to Ciss Berry 
that she should kiss her cousin, and chat to her all 
the way up-stairs, and during the time that Lizzie 
was reaching down the key from the projection above 
the door. 

" Have you thieves here in this country-place 1 " asked 
Ciss. 

" No," answered Lizzie ; " but there is never any one 
here, and Mildred thinks it better to keep the door 
locked, as it creaks in the wind ; and it is easy to go 
up every day and air the room." 

"Our rooms never want airing; that is, they have 
very often people occupying them to air them for them- 
selves. You remember there are a good many of us, 
Cousin Lizzie ; and since Dick and Do married, we 
have either one or other of them, or their babies, or 
their connections staying with us very frequently. Be- 
sides, the girls that I was at school with come and see 



108 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

me ; and the girls that were Anne's and Chatty's con- 
temporaries come and see them ; and papa and mamma 
have their acquaintances, and thus we can be seldom 
long alone. 

Lizzie was mute, reflecting on this unexampled dissi- 
pation ; while Ciss tilted off her hat with one jerk of 
her hand, drew off her cloth jacket and appeared in a 
muslin one, buckled round her waist like a boy's with 
a bronzed leather belt ; shook out her net and looked 
comically at her boots. 

" You keep shocking bad roads, Cousin Lizzie. Are 
you never spilt 1 " 

Lizzie looked wildly uncomprehending. Ciss laughed 
again the girlish laugh that had been trained but not 
restrained. 

" You must forgive me for speaking slang ; all girls 
who live among boys do, a little, you know ; though 
mamma says that they never thought of such a thing 
when she was young. O no ! they were precise and 
sensible people ; and mamma talks yet of ' true blue/ 
and 'beaux,' and * happy couples.'" 

" We don't go from home," ventured Lizzie. 

" Many persons don't visit much," chimed in Ciss, 
meaning to meet her sober kinswoman ; " and some 
women are frightened to travel by themselves. I don't 
dislike it at all for a little bit, though I think I should 
feel lonely if I went alone for a great way, but I believe 
I could do it. We talked of it last year when Dick's 
wife was very ill on their tour in Germany. Mamma 
was ill herself, and needed Anne, and Chatty was with 
Do, and my sister-in-law has no near relations. I was 



Favor. 109 

the only one that could be spared, and I could speak a 
little school French and German on a pinch. Papa 
was unavoidably engaged, and could not accompany 
me ; but if she had not been better by the next post, 
I was to have been put on board one of the London 
and Rotterdam steamers, whose captain would have 
seen me into a Rhine boat, and then there would 
have been no difficulty, for Dick and his wife were 
at Cologne." 

Lizzie trembled ; she trusted her young cousin was 
not altogether lost to feminine modesty ; but how 
hard must be the hearts and minds of her reckless 
parents ! 

" I am ready to go down now," intimated Ciss, pleas- 
antly, feeling if she did not give some such hint to her 
cousin with the crossed hands, and the long, perfectly 
unornamented, black silk apron, the necessary move 
would never be accomplished. But Ciss flew back 
again next moment, as if she had run in and out of 
that bees'-waxed, tightly-tied up apartment, from her 
earliest infancy. 

" Excuse me, pray look here, Cousin Lizzie ; my 
trunk is at the station, for, you know, you might have 
been from home ; I only carried this bag, because it 
contained a few presents which I hoped you would 
accept, and which I would have left behind me in your 
absence. You see I meditated this invasion the mo- 
ment I looked at Bradshaw, the night before we left 
Limerick, and I had still light to go out and buy a few 
trifles." 

" O dear ! you should not have thought of such a 
thing," protested Lizzie, in trepidation. 



no Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

What was she to do with presents % How could she 
receive them from a stranger whom she had never seen 
before that day 1 She had her allowance of pocket- 
money from Thomas, and spent it with Mildred's ad- 
vice, and it just covered her expenses ; nay, she was 
obliged to be economical in shoes, which she walked 
over, in a manner that Mildred could not account for. 
She sometimes saved enough to buy a half-pound of 
tea or a yard of flannel to a poor woman ; that was 
all she knew about gifts ; but this independent, joyous 
girl had her presents, like her journeys, at her finger- 
ends. 

"Here is a coronet for you, Cousin Lizzie," holding up 
a roll of blue velvet ; " the butterfly-bow on the top of 
the head is the height of the fashion. And this apron 
is worked with French silks. I hope you like the 
French silk embroidery ; I thought it might suit Cousin 
Mildred, as mamma fancied one last year," and Ciss 
glanced doubtfully first at the mushed, rounded, gay 
wreathed little apron in her hand, and then at the long, 
black stripe of the same denomination patronized by 
Lizzie. " I trust my Cousin Thomas carries a flask, or 
a telescope, or a pocket-map, when he goes on an ex- 
cursion, for I could devise nothing for him except one 
of those leather-straps and Japan cases which papa 
found so serviceable. I am afraid it was a bad idea ; 
but gentlemen are so difficult to fit with presents, they 
cost me one night's rest going and coming every 
journey, and at least a week's peace of mind at 
Christmas." 

" But Thomas never goes excursions ; it would be of 



Favor. 1 1 1 

no use to him ; keep it for some one else," exclaimed 
Lizzie, only struck with the incongruity of associating 
heavy-featured, slouching Thomas, in his faded coat, with 
that bright yellow band, glittering buckle, and beetle- 
backed little box. Lizzie had no tact, no capacity, for 
reading her neighbors' thoughts, and accommodating 
her own to them : though she was gentle, she was not 
agreeable. 

Ciss's face fell for a second, but the cloud passed 
instantaneously. " Never mind ; it was very stupid of 
me not to procure something better. I must get an- 
other recipient for my strap. " It 's not lost that a 
friend gets." You are acquainted with that proverb 1 
I should not care to keep it to myself; I have never 
anything handy " ; and Ciss buckled it over one shoul- 
der, and looked so far the nattiest little tourist that ever 
started for the mountains. 

" Oh ! " cried Lizzie. 

" Dear ! It 's quite common ! " Ciss assured her. 
" Girls carry their waterproof cloaks and their pencils 
by such means constantly. I saw girls with them over 
and over again, when we were at the Lakes." 

" Irish ! " murmured Lizzie, as if she were saying 
" Egyptian." 

" Not at all ; they were strangers like myself. I 
wonder you have never tried the plan ; before I knew 
of it, I had always to borrow one of the boys' fishing- 
baskets to convey my traps ; there again, Cousin Lizzie, 
I 'm afraid you consider me a romp or an Amazon ! " 

a O no ! " hesitated Lizzie ; " but I 'm not very 
familiar with young people." 



H2 Papers for Tfwughtful Girls. 

" And you one of them ? " remonstrated the un- 
daunted Ciss. " Do try on your coronet, and con- 
vince me that I have not been mistaken in all my 
enterprises." 

Lizzie fumbled about the velvet with trembling fin- 
gers ; but Ciss nimbly relieved her of the adornment, 
arranged it with her own expert hands on Lizzie's head, 
standing on tiptoe, pulling and pinching and patting at 
the stuff, and, in her zeal, inflicting a good many smart 
tugs and twitches on Lizzie's fair hair, dressed accord- 
ing to a mode in utter discordance with the rich roll 
above the purpling face. Lizzie stood like a victim ; 
she was so sensitive all over, that even a strain to that 
over-fine flaxen hair caused the tears to rise in her eyes, 
and Ciss was unconsciously occasioning her torture. 

" There now, Cousin Lizzie, I do declare you would 
not know yourself." 

Certainly not. Lizzie Knight had never in all her 
life before seen herself under the guise of a patient, 
dejected queen. She stood before the oval mirror half 
fascinated, half disconcerted. 

" You 're like some character I 've seen on the stage. 
Who could it be ? Not Queen Mary, of course, or 
Cleopatra \ Cleopatra would be dark, like me. Oh ! 
Queen Katharine ; King Henrys forsaken Queen Ka- 
tharine ; Cousin Lizzie, you 're her picture." 

To tell a sedate, formal woman of seven-and-twenty 
that she represents a tragedy-queen to the life does not 
tickle her vanity, or meet with her approval. Lizzie 
began quickly to disembarrass her head, but Ciss ar- 
rested her. 



Favor. 1 1 3 

" I must have the cream of the beverage first, Cousin 
Lizzie" ; and Ciss kissed Lizzie again amidst roguish 
laughter. 

Lizzie did not like it much ; she thought it was tak- 
ing a liberty with her, though Ciss was not a child, was 
not above four or five years Lizzie's junior ; at the same 
time there was something strangely novel and attrac- 
tive in the fearless familiarity and fondling affection of 
the girl. 

Lizzie walked down stairs with Ciss in her white 
jacket and netted hair; saw her sit down in the win- 
dow before the spindle-shanked work-table ; heard her 
remark on the view, and ask if dahlias and hollyhocks 
would not grow in the Brook soil, as if the scene was a 
dream. 

After all, Thomas and Mildred were not so amazed, 
stunned, and thrilled with the apparition as Lizzie had 
been ; though they were a white-haired, ashen-faced 
man and woman now, they could recall the time when 
such visions had not been rare at the Brook ; they could 
avail themselves of long slumbering experience and 
company manners, once formed, and still in existence, 
though fallen into extreme disuse. Ciss broke the even 
tenor of their life, and they were plagued how to dispose 
of her without outraging hospitality and the ties of 
blood ; but they did not hold their breaths, or flush 
into a fever like Lizzie. And it was extraordinary how 
soon the Knights became disburdened of the fretting 
sense of a charge in which they could neither give nor 
receive satisfaction from the untoward occurrence of 
having a gay young girl suddenly landed among them ; 



U4 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

how soon they grew reconciled to tke presence of a 
stranger, on ground untrodden by strangers for a score 
of years ; how soon they learned to welcome the bright 
face at their elbows, the disposition, habits, dress, so 
unlike their own, and sported so lightly before them. 
It can only be accounted for by the innate, indestructi- 
ble sociability of human nature, and by the exceeding 
pleasantness of Ciss Berry. 

Perhaps Lizzie longest resisted the charm, was of- 
fended by the girl's ease, and jealous of the simplicity 
with which she made herself at home at the Brook, and 
proffered services, which it had been formerly her sole 
part to pay, but which Thomas and Mildred now 
allowed from an interloper with nickering smiles. 

Ciss, the new-found relative of a fortnight's existence, 
claimed favors which Lizzie never ventured to solicit 
from her natural protectors in all these years ; and the 
care-worn, taciturn elders granted them after scarcely a 
moment's discussion, with still smoother brows and 
blander mouths. It seemed to Lizzie that as old peo- 
ple delight to sit in the rays of the sun, so Thomas and 
Mildred liked to bask in this girl's cheerfulness. It was 
doting in them ; it could not but pain Lizzie. But Liz 
zie took herself to task for the unamiable grudge, and 
rapidly found herself yielding to the broad attraction. 

You sometimes hear it said of a man or woman, that 
the individual can make himself or herself happy any- 
where, and thence, it may be added, this person is 
popular everywhere. Ciss was such a one ; I would 
like her character to be rightly understood, if I could 
make it plain. It was no more perfect than her irreg- 



Favor. 1 1 5 

ular face, with its brunette richness, and its limpid blue 
eyes \ but it bore with it more elements of influence, it 
effected more marvels than many a nature far higher 
and deeper. My notion is that Lizzie Knight's nature, 
cramped as it was, was the finer of the two ; but Lizzie 
was entirely self-concentrated, and, unless indirectly, 
never touched others. Ciss was mercurial, volatile, 
vain, I am sorry to say, — vain with that sweet vanity 
which craves approbation rather than admiration, affec- 
tion rather than passion. I believe one source of her 
unexpected appearance at the Brook was her ambition 
for universal conquest. She had heard of her cousins 
as morbid, inaccessible people, and she was spurred 
upon her fate by the desire to achieve a famous victory. 
She was not profound, she was not sensitive, she was not 
constant with the devoted constancy of full, still natures. 
There was a light in which she, as " everybody's body," 
disappointed and vexed you. But although you were 
angry with her for being as happy to-day with the indi- 
vidual who is your antipodes as she was with you yester- 
day ; though you were hurt to hear how speedily she 
had forgotten you, and how blithe she had been with- 
out your presence, while you had been moping in her 
absence ; still I would have defied ninety-nine out of 
the hundred to have steeled themselves against Ciss's 
lovableness. She was as welcome as flowers in spring, 
which, though they blossom for other eyes than yours, 
and have a fleeting perfume, you prefer to June roses. 
The reason lay in the circumstance that she was delight- 
ful from a most gracious virtue. I have told her faults 
first, my "wandering darling," because I don't want to 



1 1 6 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

impose her upon you as better than she really was, be- 
cause I want to point out to you a truth that may wound 
you sharply one day, if it break upon you unawares. 
The praise of man is not like the praise of God ; it is 
not given to the worthiest, the most self-denying, the 
most laborious ; it is given to certain qualities which 
bind a man to his kind, — qualities which are in them- 
selves desirable and valuable, but which are not the 
holiest or the highest. 

Ciss had large confidence in her fellows ; she had 
an immense stretch of sympathy with them. Such a 
faculty of faith, though it was an unquestioning, super- 
ficial, sometimes almost irreverent faith, — such a power 
of interest, though it was a temptation to latitudina- 
rianism and desultoriness, — was a low, smirched edition 
of the Apostle's " all things to all men," and was a vast 
gain to her even as it was to the inspired Apostle. 

It was something pleasing and profitable to see how 
Ciss sidled herself into the hearts at the Brook ; with 
what address she adapted herself to the sluggish cur- 
rents and grave volume of its stream ; how persever- 
ingly she occupied and amused herself in matters she 
had never attempted before. She was actually enam- 
ored of homeliness and seclusion, and as radiant at 
the end of several quiet weeks as on the day of her 
arrival. The inhabitants of the Brook would not have 
been flesh and blood if they had not been flattered and 
stirred by the advent of this errant star in their orbit, 
and its continued brilliance in their course. 

Mildred ransacked her repositories in order to ini- 
tiate Ciss in her old fancy-work, and was almost as 



Favor. 1 1 7 

much excited by Ciss's stitches in point and her rug 
fringe as she had been by her own nigh thirty years 
before. Thomas hired a gardener, and deputed Ciss 
to supply him with orders and directions. He had 
out the old box of a phaeton on a week-day, and 
startled Craythorpe into a report that he was about 
to take to himself a young wife, by driving Ciss 
in her gay hat, and one of her various jackets, 
to the downs, which was the drive for strangers in 
his nonage. Lizzie encouraged Ciss to hang upon 
her skirts, and chat vivaciously, in her functions as 
deputy-housekeeper, and went the length of trusting 
her with the composition and baking of a tea-cake, 
which, be it confessed, Ciss found and left raw, after 
roasting its crust to a cinder ; nevertheless, every one 
ate of it, and insisted it was very good — considering. 
The very servant-girls, ploughmen, and herds, smirked 
and sniggled to Miss Ciss, who was always turning up 
amongst them, asking their assistance, questioning them 
about their employments and recreations, and wishing 
them good speed. The maid-servants affirmed she was 
something like a pretty, lively, young lady ; and it was 
something like a house to live in when Miss Ciss was 
despatching them at all hours to Craythorpe for odds 
and ends of ribbon and lace, feathers and flowers, gum 
and paint, paper and books, for undoubtedly Ciss was 
very often busy on light stitching and study on her 
own behalf. She was perpetually changing the shape 
of those flimsy jackets and sleeves and collars. She 
was incessantly constructing new and enchanting puffs 
and ruffs, knots and rosettes. Besides all this, she 



1 1 8 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

executed pin-cushions for every member of the family, 
from Thomas (Ciss maintained her point this time, 
and insisted she had known men who hoarded pins) 
down to the poultry-girl who chased the young chickens 
from the wheat, — making them of every material from 
cut velvet, the feuille tnorte of the ancients, down to 
merino. She dotted the house over with urn-mats, anti- 
macassars, and Afghan blankets, as if the severe old 
Brook had been smitten by a fancy bazaar. Thomas 
displaced the encumbrances softly, and even lifted some 
of them between his finger and thumb, and looking at 
them, with his grim face inclined sideways, inquired, 
" What pretty things are these, Ciss % I 'm afraid they 
're useless though, — they 're like yourself." 

What trumpery it was ! and yet there was a place 
found for it at the rugged old Brook, as there was a 
place in Nature's chorus for the little robin that invaded 
the Brook's leaf-strewn garden, and lilted its autumn 
song so shrilly. The robin and Ciss bore a family like- 
ness to each other ; Ciss in her finery recalled the little 
bird jerking and pluming itself in its pretty feathers, as 
well as the downy buds bursting on a summer day. 

Lizzie had often wondered what Dr. Matthew would 
think of Ciss Berry, and the first time he met her at the 
Brook he was, by force of contrast, more cynical than 
ever, scoffing at Ciss's frail wares, and distinctly in- 
ferring that she could do nothing more worthy of her 
womanhood. But Ciss never minded him, any more 
than the little birds mind the fuming, stamping ox. 

" Sweetly sang the birds aboon, 
Care never minding." 



Favor. 1 1 9 

Ciss proceeded with her airy trifles, rather innocently 
flaunting them in his bronzed face than making any 
effort to conceal them, and laughing without the 
slightest dread or shame. But though Dr. Matthew 
was very scornful, he could not refrain from bestow- 
ing on Ciss the same gift which the savage Dean pre- 
sented to his beautiful Miss Kelly, — Spanish liquorice 
for her cold. Ciss stood in as great need of it as an- 
other ; she was not one of those well-balanced persons 
who can always keep themselves well. She was as 
hoarse as a raven the one day, had a stiff neck the 
next, and a sprained foot the third ; and remained en- 
ergetic and gay throughout a catalogue of calamities. 
It would have done any doctor, who waged war with 
nerves, megrim, and loud lamentations, abundance of 
good only to behold her. Ciss took the liquorice as 
if its transfer was no surprise to her. I believe, in 
her own lavish fashion, she afterwards endowed Dr. 
Matthew with her despised strap, and he laughed and 
stretched it in his large hands, and snapped it in two, 
but he carried off the fragments. 

" What a Hotspur of a fellow Cousin Matthew is ! " 
observed Ciss in retirement. " Is he an admirer of 
yours, Cousin Lizzie % " 

Lizzie denied the charge strenuously, and wondered 
that Ciss could take such an absurd notion into her 
head. 

" Very well, then, I may set my cap at him myself/' 
proposed Ciss jauntily. " I rather like to play gentle 
Zephyr to rude Boreas ; besides, you know, he is fair 
game, a kind of connection of mine." Ciss found 



T20 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

everybody connected with her ; if they had not mutual 
blood relations, they had mutual friends and acquaint- 
ances. It is in my mind if she had encountered the 
Imaum of Muscat, she would have established a rela- 
tion with him through some wandering Arab. That 
was one reason why Ciss was never introduced to man, 
woman, or child, without, like Sidney Smith, being in 
confidential communication with them within half an 
hour, on the basis of that minute network of family ties. 
But Ciss need not have made a pretence of availing 
herself of a connection \ there are some people who 
begin as babies to set caps, and go on setting them in 
every direction with the utmost success, until they are 
incapable of either setting or pulling caps any longer. 
Ciss was one of them. 

" Let me see if young ladies can perform a reasonable 
service beyond being flattered and fooled by wretched 
old women, to whom they dole half-pounds of rice and 
half a dozen yards of calico, and who grin maliciously 
at ' the pretty, good ladies ' the moment their backs are 
turned," cried Dr. Matthew in his domineering way, 
and taking in Lizzie in his sweeping censure as a cloak 
to his purpose of confounding Ciss. He had come 
in with a tale of a poor child that had fallen over a 
quarry, and sustained sundry grievous bruises and frac- 
tures, while its mother was working in a potato-field 
five miles off, and nobody left at home but another 
incompetent scared little child to execute his orders, 
and watch by his patient till the mother's return. The 
bullying doctor was foiled ; up jumped Ciss, dragging 
Lizzie along with her ; off she started at a minute's 



Favor. 121 

notice ; nothing stayed her, nothing overcame her. She 
smiled upon the child whose bandages and mingled 
patience and restlessness caused Lizzie's heart to flut- 
ter, her hand to shake, and her eyes to grow danger- 
ously dim ; she made herself mistress of the barren 
territory and the blundering little sister. Ciss did noth- 
ing wonderful, but the sufferer became hopeful ; the 
attendant ready, under her familiar, free, blue eyes. 
The mother would have been sour as a crab at any 
other mortal who had interfered with her child, without 
producing a right in the shape of stores of medicine 
and meats ; but Ciss had not taken time to collect 
these, and dared not apply them without consulting 
Dr. Matthew's will and pleasure ; still the woman ac- 
cepted the foreign volunteer, and accepted her solely 
from her fluent accents, her open looks, her light, quick 
tread and touch. Ciss was heartily welcome, where 
Lizzie was never received without distrust. Ciss might 
go every day, with or without drugs and dainties, and 
be entertained with increasing regard both by mother 
and baby ; while Lizzie, however benevolently laden, 
was barely tolerated. It is some excuse for this gross 
partiality, that Ciss had within herself the unshaped 
materials for a glorious nurse ; while Lizzie, with her 
queries, her doubts, and terrors, would never be fit for 
a nurse to a less determinedly sanguine and constitu- 
tionally contented patient than Ciss herself. 

After that task, Dr. Matthew and Ciss were on what 

might be called friendly terms ; but he always treated 

her as a child, and Ciss lifted the cue which he dropped 

to her without objection ; she interrupted him, chal- 

6 



122 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

lenged him, startled him, wildly and wilfully, according 
to her humor. Lizzie looked on as at an idle farce, 
of which the performers would weaiy in a day. Dr. 
Matthew was not the first growling philosopher who 
had unbent and played his play \ but Lizzie Knight 
had never witnessed the game, or dreamed of the 
conclusion. 

Lizzie sank back in her chair, thankful for the twi- 
light which hid her consternation, when Ciss came to 
her, one afternoon, and, without any very unbecoming 
confusion or rigid assertion of calmness, with nothing 
but girlish confidence, and most light-hearted assurance, 
announced to her that Dr. Matthew wished her (Ciss) 
to marry him ; " and I suppose I must, Lizzie, for you 
know I must marry somebody or other one day ! " Ciss 
was about to commit wedlock with a man, in her rage 
for conferring favors ; and to hear Dr. Matthew talking 
of his proposal, he was, in his surliness, little short of 
her in his submission to an obligation. " A doctor, 
like a minister, could not do without a wife, ergo a wife 
was an incumbent imposition ; and, for Miss Ciss, she 
rather needed to be looked after." Then Ciss had her 
gibe about bolting heads and broken bridles, and he 
had his retort, foolish, if it were not somewhat brutal, 
of the whip-hand. 

It was all a distress to Lizzie, and yet Thomas and 
Mildred were not only satisfied, but elated, and audibly 
congratulated each other on the happy, good-natured 
child Ciss being arrested in her farther flight, and 
established near them. Nobody was shocked ; nobody 
was hostile \ Dr. Matthew's father and mother yielded 



Favor. 123 

to the contingency as affably as if Ciss had been 
Thomas Knight's daughter or sister instead of his 
young cousin, as if her rejection and disparagement 
would imply the cutting off Dr. Matthew with the un- 
improved acres of the Brook without a shilling of ready 
money to expend upon them. Dr. Matthew's father 
and mother advanced the length of extending the olive- 
branch over Ciss's unreflecting head, and fitting out an 
embassy of conciliation and reconciliation to their 
offended cousins, whose sore wrath had long frozen 
into a stony feud. Thomas and Mildred Knight, stub- 
born as the cruelly exasperated righteous often are, 
narrowing and shrinking fast into a few hard, corroded 
lines, rose up and stretched their bonds for Ciss's young 
sake, and went forth slowly and stiffly to meet their 
commonplace, calculating kindred, to whom the past, 
with its fiery brand on the one house, had been to the 
other as a tale that was told. 

" They might have spared our honor, Mildred ; they 
might have joined with us to- conceal a poor sinner's 
defalcation," exclaimed Thomas, in his old, high, un- 
wavering key ; but his eye fell on Ciss's bravery, and 
flickered as eyes will blench before the toys of a child. 
" Well, we will not poison her pleasant cup, poor Ciss ; 
we will even let bygones be bygones for her sake and 
Matthew's ; these people may come and go as they like 
to the Brook for me." 

In reality Ciss picked up the fallen lines, unravelled 
the warped skein, wove anew the old, spoilt pattern, 
and all the time she had no consciousness of her merits, 
no conviction of her mission ; she was only a pleasant 



124 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

child, desiring to captivate Dr. Matthew's worldly 
father and mother, and that not so much for love of 
him as from a genius for captivation. Dr. Matthew 
and Ciss, with their respective, impulsive, unnoticing 
tempers remarked Lizzie's unpropitiatory gravity and 
dullness, in the first renewal of tokens of amity between 
the two families, and settled that she, harmless as she 
was, would never be a peace-maker, though the entire 
world were by the ears. Lizzie, pooh ! a passion-struck, 
incapable nonentity. Yet Lizzie was the noble ally 
who marched into the enemy's camp to support the 
self-interested bearers of the flag of truce. She was 
wounded, neglected, ridiculed ; she was one of those 
of whom the world is not worthy. 

Dr. Matthew and Ciss's love-affair did not always 
flow smoothly : as Ciss had apprised Lizzie of her in- 
tended union, it was her turn next to inform her with 
much the same brilliant, healthy blushes, and perplex- 
ing, inseparable mixture of fun and feeling, and not 
more than a dash of displeasure and alarm, that Dr. 
Matthew teased her, found fault with her for being 
agreeable to more amiable men ; she did not think 
she could permit it to go on \ she could not tell what 
would be the end of it. 

Lizzie looked at Ciss with her own troubled eyes, 
round which the circles had grown to an olive darkness 
on her wan, fair cheeks. She lay reflecting in anguish 
and horror in the dead of the night, long after Ciss 
slept as soundly as a child. Would it not be better for 
this ill-matched pair that something should come of 
this lover's quarrel, that the little cloud should increase, 



Favor. 125 

lower, blacken, discharge thunder over their heads and 
split them far asunder ] They were unlike ; they had 
been caught by mere fancies. But then Lizzie, igno- 
rant and inexperienced as she was, had an inspiration 
whispered to her in a true voice that Dr. Matthew's 
fondness for Ciss might be the gleam of sunshine 
athwart a harsh nature ; withdraw it, and the turbid 
tide might never again brighten and send up sparkling, 
life-giving air-bubbles to the clouded surface. And 
Ciss had her exquisite tenderness for the rough man 
who had softened to her • she had been crying before 
she fell asleep, and her tangled hair was still wet with 
tears, though it was now pressed into a cheek, round 
and rosy with the flush of profound and perfect repose. 
Was the grace of Ciss's character to be shed at a blow % 
Was her sprightliness to harden into levity, and her 
winning, honest good-will to degenerate into the spe- 
cious, immovable, unfeeling good-nature of a mere 
populafity-hunter % 'Lizzie wept, and prayed that she 
might never see that end. 

Lizzie did more ; she walked into Craythorpe, and 
returned by the winding lanes, in whose labyrinth she 
was certain to fall in with Dr. Matthew and his bay 
horse careering along like a whirlwind. Lizzie arrested 
him, though she was so nervous a woman that she 
quaked in every limb, while he had not the courtesy 
to alight, and his steed kept pawing and prancing 
around her. 

" Why have you not been out to the Brook these three 
days, Matthew ! We Ve all missed you." 

" I thought some of you might have sought better 



126 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

company," retorted Dr. Matthew sullenly, advancing, 
retreating, swerving to right and to left with his fiery 
horse. 

Lizzie supposed she was standing there at the risk of 
her life, but she gave a little laugh. 

"I wonder you can be so exacting, Matthew; the 
dews fall on many flowers, the moon shines for the 
whole world." 

Dr. Matthew's eyes gave a flash at the words, though 
he was no more given to the appreciation of poetic 
similes than Lizzie was to the use of them \ but there 
are circumstances in a vehement man's life when he 
takes kindly to figures. Dr. Matthew suddenly pulled 
up his unruly horse, and leapt off. 

" She will go more quietly when I'm not on her back," 
he explained ; " she 's not accustomed to walk with my 
weight ; she knows that there 's a pair of us bent on 
our goal," and Dr. Matthew turned and walked with 
Lizzie. 

He did not make another allusion to Ciss, neither 
did Lizzie ; but he was unusually considerate and kind 
to his cousin. He even said, " You 're tired, Lizzie," 
and offered her his arm, assuring her that his horse 
would preserve a polite distance ; and really, to see 
how the high-stepping horse was upon good-behavior, 
and walked at a foot's pace behind her master, without 
taking any greater liberty than an occasional whinnying 
over the arm round which her rein was flung, was en- 
couraging. 

Lizzie walked in a dream, much as she had sat with 
Ciss on the first day of her arrival at the Brook. When 



Favor. 127 

they approached the house, Ciss issued from the avenue. 
She did not display the least tremor ; it was an odd re- 
lief to see her advancing so cordially and merrily. She 
said directly, " I 've been looking out for you ; you 've 
been long of coming," and went round to Dr. Matthew's 
disengaged side, and took hold of his arm. 

He was too much encumbered to go on as Ciss in- 
tended ; but it was Lizzie's hand he dropped, not Ciss's, 
though he amended his fault the following moment by 
proposing to mount Ciss on " Highflyer," to get her out 
of his road. 

But he hastily refused to make the dry joke a prac- 
tical one, when Ciss begged him to put his threat into 
execution. 

"She's not used to women, — like her master; I 
would not trust you upon her, unless she was regularly 
broken for months. Ciss, Ciss, don't go so near her ; 
don't you hear ] keep away from her hoofs " ; and Dr. 
Matthew, who rode on his own account, as the son of 
Nimshi drove, " furiously," was so little inclined to be 
rash in another's person, and that other Ciss, that he 
whirled his steed round into the middle of the road, 
with an anxious droop of the mouth, and start of mois- 
ture to the brow. 

Dr. Matthew and Ciss married as they proposed, and 
if society had nothing else to say in favor of the match, 
it allowed that it was at least a blessing that Dr. Matthew 
had found a wife who did not nourish a scruple of fear 
of him. Dr. Matthew and Ciss thenceforward ruled so- 
ciety on two directly opposite principles. Dr. Matthew 
governed it with a rod of iron, and held it at bay ; Ciss 



128 Papers for Thoughtful Girls, 

manoeuvred it with a shepherd's crook wreathed with 
flowers, and brought its members trooping gladly, like 
flocks of sheep, to her feet. Ciss was the most popular 
woman within three counties, and her husband propor- 
tionally envied. What, in spite of her scrapes % — even 
in spite of her scrapes. A bold, blithe child like Ciss, 
who puts her hand into every dish, is scorched and 
scalded, not by scores, but by hundreds of times. You 
have seen the mischief which a lively child generally 
contrives to -create in a house ? Just such was Ciss's 
mischief in the world ; but who bears malice against 
the child ! who would give up the child, though it were 
to pull down the house about our heads ? who can even 
forget what light and zest and spirit and fun and fond- 
ness the child brings with it into the house % So the 
inhabitants of Craythorpe, Dr. Matthew's father and 
mother, the family at the Brook, truly and fully forgave 
Ciss her numerous involuntary offences. They would 
have been so dull and cheerless without her ; they would 
have wanted so much of the wine and scent of their 
lives. Husband and wife had their discords ; Ciss, with 
her accessibility, her obliging humors, her absence of 
perception of natures less hardy and sunny than her 
own, tried her husband as we all try each other. Dr. 
Matthew would cut the Gordian knot with imperial 
decision and violence, and though Ciss was not capa- 
ble of conceiving a shade of apprehension where he was 
concerned, she was susceptible of being hurt by her 
husband's despotism. Then Lizzie Knight, a stiff, still 
maiden lady, whom everybody voted a bore, was the 
mediator between them, as she had been in the days 



Favor. 129 

of their courtship, and so successfully that they forgot 
her very existence in the perfect fulfilment of her office ; 
they forgot the office itself, and the need of it, and 
would have been extremely indignant — Dr. Matthew 
like a bear, Ciss like a shrieking sparrow — if any in- 
vidious*" individual had ventured to hint that they were 
not the happiest couple in the world. I should expect 
that Dr. Matthew at the close of his life, looking back 
on the long period that Ciss had brightened its atmos- 
phere and dispelled its malaria, feeling how her pres- 
ence had planted and nourished slips of faith and hope, 
would leave it as his dying testimony, " We have been 
very happy together, Ciss ; we have been the better of 
each other, my darling " ; and Ciss would assent eagerly 
through her sobs, and Lizzie Knight, catching the words, 
would clasp her hands on them, in her solitary home, 
and call herself blest. 

If Ciss's gifts of sweetness were thus potent, straying 
and straggling and spending themselves according to 
their frail will, what would they be, guided by unerring 
wisdom % If the blossom and fruit of the wild vine were 
thus alluring, what would they be, gently trained to their 
perfection of holiness and love % 




AMBITION. 




ET girls learn everything, and one thing 
well, observed philosophic, keen, self-satis- 
fied Lady Morgan ; herself an example of 
the height to which acuteness, persever- 
ance, audacity, and a joyous temperament can carry 
a woman ; that is, to a certain height and no farther, 
to be admired, but not reverenced, to be courted for 
her wit, and yet laughed at ! Yes, laughed at loudly, 
because we need much weightier ballast than wit to 
preserve us from being supremely ridiculous, and we 
must show our neighbors other qualities than confident 
philosophy and overbearing good-humor, before they 
will be very tender of our foibles. But that little 
woman was wonderfully well-disposed and good-na- 
tured, with rather a metallic good-nature ; and there 
was a considerable amount of truth in her judgment. 
Take it with qualifications : " Let girls learn everything 
(they can), and one thing thoroughly," if they have the 
peculiar faculty, ambition, and steadfastness. 

The ignorance of the presence or absence of any 



Ambition. 131 

decided bent of talent, is a proof of the defective nature 
of much that we call education. At the same time a 
strong inclination generally makes itself visible, as the 
horse-leech cries, " Give, give I " and it is only negli- 
gence, inertness, strong prejudice, or a contrary cur- 
rent of motives and desires, which allows it to be over- 
looked. 

The writer has written before to those girls who have 
no particular gift but the best gift ; the great, smiling, 
melting gift of grace and goodness, if they will. She 
would now speak to those who, like the wise woman 
in Proverbs, may bring their food from afar, and, with 
their own hands, plant vineyards ; of the honor and 
happiness of vindicating such powers ; and the disgrace 
and sorrow of wasting them, and allowing them to rust 
in idleness and darkness. 

Our Maker bestowed on us no subtle perception or 
fine skill to have it folded up in a napkin, because he 
is an austere man, and rules according to his pleasure 
among the armies of heaven and the children of men. 
The presence of design, constructiveness, potent sym- 
pathy, and pleasant humor ; the endowment of special 
language ; the capacity of painting thoughts and feel- 
ings, or drawing them out in chords and harmonies ; 
the genius of government, by which a woman may 
become a poor-law commissioner, or a guardian of a 
workhouse, with no loss, but great benefit to the pub- 
lic ; the mere existence of these qualities in women, 
like the presence and development of teeth, both car- 
nivorous and herbivorous, in the flesh-devouring, vege- 
table-eating animal, man, is not only a warrant, but an 



132 Papers for Thotightfid Girls. 

injunction for their use, though not for their abuse. 
How woman can ever feel ashamed of such good and 
glad crowns ; how man can ever cry shame upon her 
for wearing her natural adornment (as much her natural 
adornment as the hair of her head), and for wielding 
her natural sceptre, of which men reap the full advan- 
tage, are among the disheartening anomalies which have 
continued to exist in the middle of freedom, intelligence, 
benevolence, and Christianity. Perhaps it is because 
we have loved womanliness so well, that we fear even 
what seems to tarnish its meekness and modesty ; in 
which case let the doubt be amply forgiven, though 
surely it is an unworthy doubt, like that which prevents 
a Christian from inquiring into the proofs and reasons 
of the faith which is in him, or from summoning science 
to walk in its proper place, hand in hand with revela- 
tion. Womanliness, to be true, gentle, loyal, and docile, 
must be stupid and silly ! A strange compliment to 
innocent, delicate womanliness. Indeed, there are no 
such sadly obstinate wights as narrow-minded worthies ; 
no such vain though kindly feather-heads as flourish 
over shallow and weak brains. When you cannot help 
them, make the best of them ; establish them on good- 
ness, and their defects will be, by comparison, of little 
consequence, and your own forbearance will do you a 
vast deal of good ; but to exalt defects over perfections, 
is to call evil good and good evil, bitter sweet and sweet 
bitter. 

A girl may have a gift in her ; but to cultivate and 
expand it, and cause it to bear fair flower and fruit, she 
must be patient, diligent, and self-denying \ she must 



Ambition. 133 

encounter a great deal of drudgery, and overcome some 
misunderstanding and a good deal of temptation. And 
this is just what many of our girls fear to do. Speak 
to your young listener, who is enthusiastic, with a strug- 
gling enthusiasm, of the independence she may attain, 
the pleasure she may bestow, the good she may do by 
the study which is so much an instinct and an affection 
with her, and if she is worth anything she will open 
wide her eyes, eager and uplifted ; but honestly point 
out the difficulties and sacrifices she must expect to 
face, and she is unduly depressed and disheartened. 
This is not womanliness, elastic, ardent, hopeful, per- 
sistent to the end, but unworthy softness and coward- 
ice ; the sloth and luxuriousness of a conventionality 
which is of sense and not of faith, fit for Turkish sul- 
tanas, but not fit for vigorous, wise, good English girls. 
What ! shrink from being a painter because you cannot 
at once gad in the streets with other girls and sit at the 
easel % Renounce the wish and prayer to be a writer, 
and help, comfort, and entertain others as they have 
aided, solaced, and enlivened you, because you must 
rise early and lie down late, cannot afford this ball or 
that promenade, or, if you do attend the one or the 
other, be dubbed by the ancient title of Blue-stocking, 
and avoided or slighted by the vulgar, small men and 
women % Lose your chance of becoming a naturalist, 
experienced and indefatigable, because you must make 
your researches alone, or at rare intervals with a com- 
panion, while, if you only walked for a complexion, or 
an appetite, or to seek a greenhouse bouquet from my 
lord's gardener, or pheasants' feathers for your hat from 



1 34 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

his gamekeeper's wife, you would have six, twelve, as 
many as you wished, of chattering, laughing associates, 
not looking strange upon you, not proceeding to taboo 
you by the whisper that " Margaret wants to be out of 
the common ! " Desert the alms-house, the hospital 
for sick children, the industrial school, the Sabbath 
school, because your responsibility, labor, and weari- 
ness are serious enough facts ; because you are lightly 
enough teased about making a long face on the matter, 
and arraigned sometimes, not without cause, for neglect- 
ing nearer but more obscure duties % This might be 
what one would be prepared for from laziness, languor, 
frivolity, worldliness ; but it is not what one is enti- 
tled to claim from health, strength, bravery, cheeriness, 
faith. 

It is simply a disgrace to a girl to renounce her 
birthright, — a disgrace, and an act of self-indulgence, 
disobedience, and irreverence \ but I am afraid it will 
be often done until we recognize the gift broadly, 
desire to have more individuality among our girls, and 
recognize other prizes for them than comfortable mar- 
riages. 

But what is to hinder them from marrying happily, 
among the happiest of the happy, while they are show- 
ing themselves gifted, industrious, successful, and meek 
in their success ] The distrust in this case proceeds 
from a tendency which Charles Dickens commented 
on in Little Don-it, — that agreeable salve to vanity, in 
accordance with which the ordinary partner in the firm 
was disposed not to allow to the extraordinary mechan- 
ical genius the use of common capacity in the manage- 



Ambition. 135 

ment of common affairs ; astonished that he should 
keep, intelligible accounts, be plain, punctual, and 
painstaking in every-day business, like less endowed 
men. A good deal of this folly is expunged, and it is 
not so often provoked now by a class of airy, second- 
rate pretenders to genius ; and what grains of truth are 
in it are met and dealt with more genially and gener- 
ously. Is my husband or my wife less scrupulous of 
the number of covers on the table, the seasonings of a 
dish, the hue of a stuff, than he or she might have been 
but for that picture, or book, or committee ! Must I 
run to the office, count the plates, correct the cook, 
lecture the tailor or milliner, all on my own responsi- 
bility, without sympathy or assistance % Ah ! but he or 
she is great or good, and so sorry when the omission is 
discovered, and so fond and humble in a thousand 
efforts at atonement ; as Sir Walter could not say 
enough for days in the praise of those new hangings in 
the drawing-room at Abbotsford, which had been put 
up on purpose to surprise him when he came down 
from London, and which, on the first flush of his ar- 
rival, he had unluckily overlooked. Bah ! it is my 
delight to serve, honor him or her : the little gaucheries, 
vexatious for a moment, are but food for mirthful ten- 
derness afterwards ; I think I would not give them up 
for anything. Until I am perfection myself, I should 
be ill-suited with perfection for a partner ; but that is 
no jesting matter, and my eyes grow dim. Is it that I 
feel my darling is indeed growing too perfect for this 
world and me, too free from alloy? and do I rejoice 
with fear and trembling lest some day he or she may 



136 Papers for Thoughtful Girls, 

have left me behind, and I may be pining, pining to be 
made meet to rejoin my love in heaven % 

But it rests with young girls to remove or confirm 
this prejudice, and they must be watchful in their am- 
bition, — watchful for the honor of their callings, and 
the master of every art and faculty. In the first place, 
their aim must have an end, and that end must not be 
selfish vanity, or, surer than any other Nemesis to a 
woman, the fruit of their attainment will be apples of 
Sodom and grapes of Gomorrah. Watch that you do 
not forget what has already been said of intellectual 
efforts, that they are the means, not the .end, — good 
Sir Walter's staff, not his crutch, — and to women the 
secondary means. Clear as day, her first lie in her 
domestic ties. Is she a daughter? she must first be 
not only a dutiful daughter, but a comfortable daughter 
to the old people ; their cheerful support, their daily, 
considerate, kind, glad stay, before she can be a sculp- 
tor or ornithologist. Is she a sister % she must first be 
a fond, faithful sister, confidante, assistant, nurse, play- 
mate, before she need meddle with modelling in clay, 
or wielding workman's tools. These papers have less 
to do with wives and mothers, but they, of all others, 
must first fulfil their most solemn, tender, noble obliga- 
tions, — begin, be it reverently spoken, at Jerusalem, ere 
they can stretch their tendrils far and near. Their hus- 
bands must praise them in the gates \ their children 
must rise up and call them blessed ; yea, their whole 
households must be clothed in scarlet before, as well 
as because they deliver girdles to the merchant ; study 
and nursery must not only be swept, but garnished as 



Ambition. 137 

perfectly as fond, feeble hands can prepare them for- the 
spirit of all goodness, before, as well as because of, the 
attendance of the lecture, or the share in the practical 
work of the soup-kitchen. But once let the woman's 
primary duties be fulfilled, and then let her zealously 
and religiously cultivate her gift in a hopeful, persever- 
ing, devout spirit, recognizing God in the kingdoms of 
art, nature, science, and social life, and believing fully 
that he has work for her to do in one or more of them. 

It would be hard to express in too strong language 
what a calling, taken in a proper spirit, may be to a 
woman ; how healthy and happy, and useful and beauti- 
ful it may make her life ; how her fine, sensitive organ- 
ism, shielded by faith and meekness, may bear the brunt 
of the worries and animosities, the difficulties and strug- 
gles to which it exposes her, better than the roughness 
and insensibility of most men can do. It would be 
difficult to say with too much emphasis what a hopeless 
business it is to fight against a calling ; how impossible 
to annihilate faculties ; what a painful process to stifle 
them • how unsatisfactory to strong men that milk diet 
so sweet to puling babes, or, in fact, how unpalatable 
any diet which the individual stomach rejects, thrust 
upon it in place of that particular portion of meat which 
the ill-used functionary inevitably craves. 

What happiness would be produced by the reverent 
cultivation and general employment of women's tal- 
ents ; what weariness, sickness, sorrow, and evil spared, 
thoughtful women know right well. Harriet Martineau 
has discoursed very sensibly of the inanition hovering 
over many a household of women, upon the whole well- 



138 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

disposed ; the feeble, unsteady health of thousands of 
girls in the middle classes, and the serious danger of 
their assuming, as resources for idle hours and diversion 
for vacant minds, such lofty charges as ought to be 
undertaken only in self-denial and lowliness from pure 
love to God and man. She describes a good and wise 
rich man, who has been able to procure for one daugh- 
ter a painting-room, for another a music-room, etc. ; and 
very fair the house stands in the mind's eye, and very 
blithe we imagine the family reunions in the evenings, 
— pleasant relaxation after wholesome work, lively com- 
parison of feats achieved, keen mutual interest, kind and 
generous sympathy, — like that of those poor young 
Bronte's strolling up and down the parlor in the twilight, 
and recounting to each other their wonderful stories. 
Very few have the means to procure separate workshops 
so completely ; not many have the entire individuality 
which requires them. But where they are called for, 
faith, respect, cordiality, good-nature, can and do supply 
them in a great measure, were it only on the corner of 
the table uninvaded, in the hour of time uninterrupted. 
Then rejoice, young girl, in the gift with which God 
has intrusted you ; rejoice with all humility, but in all 
freedom ; rejoice in a kindred gift, interchange streams 
of honest admiration and affection. Like Hannah, 
carry up the Samuel to God's temple, and fear not to 
cherish the rest of your spiritual children, clustered 
richly about your hearth. Believe that God has given 
them to you for time and eternity ; and if they are full 
of blemishes, imperfections, ignorances, and offences 
here, which often sadly grieve and distract you, they 



Ambition. 139 

will be all free from speck and stain, clumsiness and 
mutilation yonder. Be faithful ; don't idle and dally 
and slumber when you might be achieving, in our own 
small way, a creditable work, and renown ; a work and 
renown to consecrate to your God; when you might 
delight those who have such an unselfish joy in your 
skill and success; when you might befriend hundreds 
and hundreds who have the same capabilities, but not 
the same comforts ; the same weapons, but not the 
same shield ; the same God and Father, but who have 
not been reconciled to him in the same Saviour and 
Elder Brother. 

O, to have girls good and true ; good and true in 
their cleverness, good and true in their simplicity ; 
hard-working, enterprising, contented, guileless, glad ; 
great painters, poets, musicians, novelists, naturalists, 
social economists, teachers, housekeepers, cooks, seam- 
stresses ; whatever their hands find to do, no matter 
what, without a dream of their being other than obe- 
dient children, affectionate sisters, loyal wives, devoted 
mothers ! 

A DREAM OF HONOR. 

WHAT a pleasant dream was that of the milk- 
maid over her basket of eggs ; how they were 
to be converted into chickens, fowls, geese, lambs, 
flocks of sheep, calves, stalled oxen, a farm waving 
with russet wheat, and blooming with blue potato-blos- 
som ; the green gown which was to captivate " Colin, 
my dear," and " Colin, my dear," in person, crowning 



140 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

the pyramid ! What a pity the eggs broke ; how we 
sympathize with the weeping lass ! There is a French 
version of the story, with glass for eggs, and a swain 
for the damsel ; and the great variation is, that having 
seen the foundation of his fortune shattered at his feet, 
ouf! Jacques opens his brown eyes for a moment, and 
then resumes his shred of an onion, his brown bread, 
his stick, his whistle, as contentedly as before. I don't 
know if the moral is improved by this philosophy. I 
strongly suspect if Jacques has not the keenness to be 
mortified by failure, he will never have the doggedness 
to win success. 

But there are other dreams than these airy, selfish 
visions. They may not be known in your philosophy, 
but I hope that you 've either had an inkling of them 
in your best and bravest hours, or else that they will 
yet come to you with more fully-matured powers, and 
a wider range of vision. I know, poor souls ! you will 
not have these dreams unalloyed, untarnished ; you will 
not see them fulfilled without many an unwilling inter- 
view with a gruesome servant, whom people name " the 
pale Leah," the "withered hag," disappointment; but 
dream on, nevertheless, like Leah's rival's son, and 
cheer yourself in the process with the homely, vigorous 

proverb, — 

" Who bodes himself a silk gown, 
Is sure to wear a sleeve o 't." 

Madge Haliburton sat dreaming, dreaming one sul- 
try summer night, at the window of a house looking 
out on an old sea-washed cathedral. It was a little 
town, full of poor or pompous folk ; but the massive 



Ambition. 141 

arches, the rarely-carved doorways and windows of the 
ruin, whose living glory was departed, brought art- 
students to the neighborhood, and gave a slight art 
bent to the society of substantial or mean professional 
men and shopkeepers. The cathedral gave a direction 
to Madge Haliburton's task and talents. She was a 
clever creature, Madge \ but, like those architects of 
the Middle Ages who built because of Strasburgh and 
Milan, Madge probably painted because of the symme- 
try of tower and belfry, and the perfect coloring of the 
brown old stones, and bronze lichens which powdered 
them like gold-dust. Madge was believed to have a 
craze about the cathedral ; she painted it constantly, 
from every point of view, with something like an agony 
of admiration, and something like an agony of abase- 
ment at her own inadequate attempts to do it justice. 
She often told herself she was a vain fool to approach 
it with a pencil ; it was as far above her as the sky, 
and she ought to confine herself to cottages ; but, after 
all, it was an unfailing source of joy to her. I believe 
its very stones were dear to her, like the dust of Zion 
to the captives in Babylon ; above all, it served her as 
a master in apprenticeship. All of us had better begin, 
as we shall have to end, by casting amateur achieve- 
ments to the winds, and submitting to a long, irk- 
some, toilsome, though gradually brightening appren- 
ticeship. 

Madge had been painting during the day, hot as it 
had been, and was now, perforce, resting and thinking 
in the twilight ; and then, to reward Madge, there sud- 
denly dawned upon her, and marched before her, one 



142 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

of those processions of the future which beguile us 
from the present and lure us on to glory or to destruc- 
tion. But first, before catching the bright film of 
Madge's dream, a word on the sober substance of 
Madge's life. Madge's home was a quiet one, to some 
too quiet ; but Madge liked it, loved it with a sacred 
intensity of fondness, somewhat as she did the old 
cathedral. Her father was a respectable old trades- 
man, not rich, though with a strain of refinement in his 
disposition which many moneyed men want. They used 
to call him, with justice, a gentlemanly old man. 
Madge's mother was more bustling and more ordinary \ 
still she was a kindly woman, loved and slaved for 
Madge and the little ones, and was only vexed that 
Madge's life was half-moping, half-laborious, like her 
own. Mrs. Haliburton would have been quite con- 
tented going on doing a drudge's work for Madge, if 
Madge would but have been what she could thoroughly 
understand ; if Madge would have taken her pleasure, 
and made a little show in the town, and only occasion- 
ally helped her mother and the servant-girl with the 
cooking and cleaning and mending and making of gar- 
ments for the family. It was short-sighted of Mrs. 
Haliburton, but it was so far disinterested ; and perhaps 
there was blended with it a little vexed prescience. If 
Madge went on with her reading and drawing, though 
she made her living by them, would not such pursuits 
gradually separate her from her mother i Would not 
Madge, good and true as she might be, prove less her 
mother's companion and friend if she should be able to 
work a miracle, and grow into a cultivated genius ] 



Ambition. 143 

Mrs. Haliburton was right ; Madge did drift away from 
her mother's side to occupy another position with re- 
gard to her ; and it caused them both pain and trouble 
for many a day ere they fitted into their new places. 

Madge's brothers and sisters were all younger than 
she was, and, as it sometimes happens in large families, 
were more companions of each other than of Madge ; 
and yet there was no want of affection between them. 
So it happened that when Madge kept a vigil she kept 
it alone. 

And Madge knew very well that to. be an artist of 
even moderate pretensions, she must eat her bread em- 
phatically in the sweat of her brow, or else throw an 
additional load on her already burdened father. It 
was this reflection more than any other that occasion- 
ally staggered her ; but I do not find that it ever di- 
verted the girl to any extent from her course, any more 
than the hoary, serene, unattainable perfection of the 
old cathedral ; and thus we come upon Madge resting 
from painting. 

Madge sat on an old window-seat in a kind of lum- 
ber-room, where she was at liberty to draw and paint, 
and where she could command leisure ; and well it is 
for your isolated student if there is such a lumber-room 
in a family house. She was idly fingering some shells, 
and looking out on the cathedral, already looming a 
giant in the gloaming, and away on the yellow stretch 
of sands and the gray sea. The sea and the sands are 
not favorable to ambition, any more than fragrant hay- 
fields and cattle-sheds. The Bucolics are apt to cripple 
a man and render him bovine ; the sea and the sands 



144 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

are too vast \ they press upon one like a fate ; they sug- 
gest, not a note of victory, but a moaning for the 
doomed and their destiny. 

But she was too young to study nature with a human 
instead of an artist's eye. To look at Madge herself, 
she was nothing remarkable : she was tall and fresh- 
colored, a little old-looking for her years, and with 
something restless in her air, and searching in her eyes, 
which spoiled their beauty ; her hands, too, showed her 
a nervous girl, as they perpetually opened and closed 
on the round shell, with its flecks of rich, soft, shaded 
tints, like those painted on the skin of a wild beast. 
She was fancying, "What if I ever gain expression 
and skill to paint the cathedral as truly as the sea, 
or the living creature within, from the essence of its 
own being, has painted this shell, and folk start and 
draw a long breath, and stand to gaze at the fac-simile 
as they do at the original, and feel that it too is a 
reality, has the impress of spirit ! I think I have some- 
thing in common with the cathedral, or with the man 
who built it, although it is not very modest to say it 
even to myself; but I do feel one with it, as I do not 
feel with many speakers and their speeches. Little 
Davie suggested the other day, apropos of the engine 
roaring and tearing along on the other side of the gar- 
der wall, ' I wonder if that big brute knows me ' ; very 
egotistical of Davie, and I am sure it is very egotistical 
of me to suppose that I know the cathedral, and that it 
looks down on me like a grand old father. Some day, 
if I try every shade and every hue, and paint and pant 
and pray, will it come nearer me, and shall I read all 



Ambition. 145 

its proportions and dyes, and hold converse with the 
spirit which devised it, as a man with his fellow ] How 
calm and full and conscious of wisdom and power I 
should be then, and how bountiful to humanity to mul- 
tiply beauty, and bring it round our boards and beds ! O 
dear, how crazed the town would think me, if it could 
hear me thinking ! The people call me cracked already, 
and they scorn my poor father and mother for tolerat- 
ing my pride and vanity, and they say my pride will 
have a fall, and that it is madness to encourage a girl 
to be unlike her neighbors ; nothing good ever comes 
* of it. v Even Mr. Bernard, the artist, hinted to my 
father that it was folly and presumption in me to choose 
such a walk, though I had some taste and touch ; 
women were never anything better in his trade than 
weak bunglers. I would need to attain a certain degree 
of excellence, and constitute my scratches and daubs 
marketable commodities to meet buyers; think how 
hard that would be ! only to reach the short length 
which thousands of wealthy woman are born to. But 
it is not true," — and Madge's face flushed a bright red, 
and her foot beat upon the floor, while she recalled the 
cruel, cowardly accusation, — "it is not true that I 
would waste my father's means, or that I desire to be 
a fine lady, in place of a nursery-governess or a dress- 
maker, or a milliner. I will never take a farthing that 
I have not earned to aid my own projects. I dare not, 
for how can I tell that they will succeed, or that I shall 
live to accomplish them ; but if they did succeed, if 
they prospered — " 

Madge leant forward to the open window in the 
7 J 



146 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

direction of the purpling west and the violet sea and 
the pinnacles of the old cathedral ; and her lips parted 
with the triumph and gladness of the realization. The 
vision ran on, and was not unworthy of the scene. 

" To walk the streets of her homely native town, like 
some of those old Italian woman, in confessed dignity 
and honor ; to confer profit and pleasure whenever she 
lifted her hand ; to have her existence registered as a 
treasure in other towns and other countries ; to com- 
mand her own stream of bounty, and bid it flow freely 
wherever the earth was parched and dry, within one 
mortal's reach ; to grow up the pillar and roof, — the 
solid stay as well as the flowery bower of one home ; 
not merely to do a little, but to do much \ not sim- 
ply to 

1 Help to gar the boatie row, 
And lichten a' the care,' 

but to take the oars reverently from the cracked, shak- 
ing, feeble, faltering hands, and say, ' Now, sit in the 
stern, you dear ones, and bask in the sun and enjoy the 
ripple on the water and the murmur in the air, while 
you are still able to drink them in with delight, and let 
us draw the nets, and bring the craft to shore,' — and 
then to encounter other boats guided by like ardent 
spirits, to give them hail, and steer with them on their 
course, to rejoice generously in their noble freight, their 
speed, their sea-worthiness, and to anchor at last in the 
same haven ! " 

Madge, Madge, are you a wise woman, or are you a 
fool % Thousands mock and deride you, and echo 
loudly the old insolent, sensual baron's cry, 



Ambition. 147 

"Go, spin, you jade! go, spin." 
Only a few, a very few valiant and charitable brothers 
and sisters whisper gently, "Wait and see if she can 
climb the steep mountain ; we will crown her on the 
summit." 

It is winter in place of summer, with fogs shrouding 
the sea, and snow-flakes picking out, with a skeleton 
effect, the old cathedral. Madge is in the dear old 
house, but she is no longer in the lumber-room, which 
never looked dreary in these cloudless summer morn- 
ings and evenings. She is in a modern painting-room, 
with all the accessories and indulgences of modern in- 
vention ; palette and easel, lay-figure, models and casts 
disposed around her. She is not a girl now ; she is a 
woman past her prime. Her air has lost its restless- 
ness, but it is languid with the reflection of weariness : 
her eyes are no longer searching, but they are hollow in 
her face. It is somewhere about Christmas time, and 
she owns that it ought to be holiday with her, and so 
does not work, but comes and sits and meditates 
in the dusk, before her studio fire, as she pondered 
in the summer sunset over the sea by the western 
window. 

There is a shadow upon Madge to-night ; a black, 
thick shadow, which strongly sympathetic natures must 
face and overcome. She rather crouches and cowers 
over her fire, and listens to the voices in the next room. 
The old people are there, and some of their family, and 
she has a sense to-night that her presence may be an 
intrusion among them. Respected and beloved, she is 



148 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

still a check on their frank, ordinary life. It is a sad 
truth, that she is more isolated as a woman than as 
a girl. Had her family been some steps higher on the 
social ladder ; had she not had to toil so heavily and 
unremittingly, she might have carried them in a greater 
degree with her. As it is, she may be their divinity, but 
she is not their familiar friend. 

But Madge has done something that should console 
her. Her cathedral is not only stamped upon her soul, 
but she has given forth reflections of it, and of other 
cathedrals, and of cathedrals of the rocks and the woods, 
which she has lived to recognize. Not kindred eyes 
alone, common eyes have read them, and responded 
with a dumb joy to the reading. Madge has conquered. 
They no longer say, in her native town, that she is silly 
and audacious, and the next thing to an adventuress ; 
for in Madge's town unacknowledged intellect is barely 
respectable. They no longer sneer at the patent de- 
fects which Mr. Bernard has kindly and magnanimously 
pointed out to them in her works, and pity the poor 
thing for infatuatedly spending her strength for naught, 
and giving her money for that which is not bread ; and 
next pity the idiotic father and mother for lending her 
their countenance in her enthusiasm, and for not posi- 
tively forbidding the nuisance. 

Ah ! poor Mrs. Haliburton had done her best with 
the conceited, headstrong girl ; and it was well known 
that she was mortified and affronted by Madge's preten- 
sions to studiousness and affectation of genius. She 
had been well aware, that making puddings and stitch- 
ing shirts would have better become her daughter. 



Ambition. 149 

For Mr. Haliburton, it was well known that he was 
always a poor scheming creature himself, so that the 
girl had, doubtless, her absurdity by descent. That was 
over. The inhabitants no longer laughed and shook 
their heads, as Madge passed them on the street with 
her portfolio. They bowed to her, and called for her ; 
the magnates did, and asked her co-operation in their 
societies, and listened to her advice when she bestowed 
it along with her contributions. She had done some- 
thing more at home ; the old tradesman's household was 
no longer hampered and harassed ; the wheels of life 
ran easily there now ; the spirits that had been subdued 
and distracted at length tasted self-respect, cheerfulness. 
The younger members of the family were going out into 
the world with less clouded anticipations and sunnier 
prospects. And Madge had done something, too, for 
her own spiritual development; had won some com- 
mission worth chronicling. One or two knights-errant, 
waging war with ignorance, ugliness, sloth, and sin had 
clasped hands with her in her career, warmed her poor, 
stiff fingers with their encouragement and approval, 
lifted up her struggling spirit to something of a level 
with their own freedom, and given her a draught or two 
of the pure air, and a glimpse or two of the heaven that 
would be. 

But Madge sees nothing of this to-night ; her mantle 
of darkness is upon her. Her pictures, — they are miser- 
able caricatures, faded shadows, decrying, degrading the 
glorious works of God, the majestic efforts of masters 
and true craftsmen. She sees every false line and weak 
point in them to-night, until she puts her hands before 



150 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

her eyes to shut out the copies on the walls ; copies 
which she had painted with childlike hope, love, and 
thankfulness. She had deceived others, or else their 
money was rife ; and some who gave praise and not 
money had been weakly good-natured, or basely hypo- 
critical, and had only feigned to be deceived. And for 
this gross failure she has pawned youth, leisure, equal 
companionship, kindly ties. She remembers when she 
had gone out almost at daybreak, morning after morn- 
ing, walked miles and miles, through dust or mire, to 
this waterfall or that bridge, painted and painted the 
livelong day, ate a morsel of bread from her pocket, 
and lagged home at nightfall faint and weary % She 
remembers when she had missed both dinner and sup- 
per to run at odd moments to the cathedral \ when she 
had missed her father's prayers, to take it under the 
light of the first star ; when she had to pay a special 
fee to the old man at the gate, be stared at as uncanny, 
and grumbled over as unreasonable. She 'had narrowly 
escaped being crippled with rheumatism \ she had been 
once or twice on the verge of a nervous fever \ and what 
were her wages % The old folk were more comfortable, 
— she confessed that \ but would she not have been 
more of a comfort to them, more of a daily and nightly 
right-hand woman, a house-daughter in short, such as 
fathers and mothers love best and prefer first, — had 
she not endowed them as a benefactress, but relieved 
them as a child % Had she simply been interested in 
their concerns and occupied at their instigation % She 
fancied Janet and Melville might be careless of their 
every wish. She knew she could have been devoted 



Ambition. 151 

to them, but she had no liberty left her. Her father 
grudged to see her hem his pocket-handkerchiefs ; her 
mother refused to allow her to make her markets. 

"We won't take up your valuable time, Madge. No, 
no, my dear; go to your canvas, or else enjoy yourself 
in your own way." 

That was not the worst of it. Continual hurry of 
mind is not conducive to tranquillity of temper. Madge 
writhed under the fear that she was often impatient and 
undutiful in word, though never in deed. She was all 
for obscurity and mediocrity to-night. Simple suffering 
was the best discipline to a woman ; acting as she had 
done was a forward, fatal error. 

For Madge's brothers and sisters, alas, alas ! some 
were no longer here for whom Madge had striven and 
conquered. She had her guerdon, but she could only 
place it on their silent graves. And were not they who 
were gone the very ones for whom she could have 
worked most wonders, who would have rejoiced most 
in her attainments, who could have profited most by 
her gain? The others seemed to be independent of 
her, — might be rendered worse instead of better, by a 
staff to lean upon, a shelter to fall back into. There 
was Melville, so blooming and thoughtless, engaged to 
be married, too, though she had never borne a cross or 
taken to herself a care. How would she stand alone, 
or combat with difficulties in the battle of life % Love 
would teach her, and love was a tenderer teacher than 
the grim old cathedral ; love would find her and leave 
her fearless, fond, dependent, and trustful. Melville 
was not alone this cold December night ; Melville 



1 5 2 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

would not be alone under the laurel-crown on her 
gray hairs \ Melville would not lie alone on her dying 
bed. 

There was a tap at the door of Madge's room, fol- 
lowed by a rustling and whispering, and joyful giggling 
of young and old voices. It grated on Madge's ears. 

"Come in," she said, austerely, and looked round 
with asperity. 

But the indignation vanished from Madge's brow in 
a moment, when there entered her old father with his 
hand on his stick, her mother in the very laced cap 
under whose peaked caul Madge used to imagine 
there was safety and assurance forever, her sisters, 
her brother Hugh and his wife, and one or two of 
their little, stumping, brawling children, in the par- 
ticular escort and patronage of her youngest brother 
Davie. 

"We thought you were too long alone, child, and 
none of these refractory young people would take upon 
them to interrupt you and fetch you, so we have come 
in a body, for we cannot do without you, Madge," and 
then there burst in a chorus. 

" To choose the colors of the wools, Madge." 

" To help to entertain us who are strangers." 

"To cut out figures for us, Aunt Madge, and make 
trumpets and boats." 

" To awe impertinent people, Madge." 

Madge rose, yawning and laughing, as if she had been 
caught in a stupid, luxurious nap, but with a pang of 
remorse and repentance at her tender heart. In the 
parlor, the servant was putting down her letters, and 
waiting to speak to her. 



Ambition. 153 

" The cripple, Andrew, Miss Madge, come to let you 
see how he is getting on with his schooling, and he 's 
as proud as a peacock before he begins ; and the old 
woman, Macfarlane, come to tell of her daughter's re- 
covery in the hospital, and she 's as happy as a queen 
this night." 

Madge, Madge, read your letters, for I predict they 
contain commissions and criticisms which make you 
blush, for you are as bashful, Madge, as Lord Nelson, 
about whom Davie mutters in his sleep. 

Madge turned her back. " O Lord, forgive me. My 
lines are cast in pleasant places. My cup is running 
over." 





VI. 



PLEASURE. 




SUPPOSE no one denies that we all desire 
pleasure, notwithstanding our difficulty in at- 
taining it. However, there is this curious 
contradiction, that there is nothing more ne- 
cessary than to urge young girls to cultivate purely pleas- 
ant habits, purely pleasant tastes which shall not pall, 
which they may reasonably hope will increase and 
brighten with years, and be made perfect in a better 
and an enduring world. There is nothing more puz- 
zling, and yet more patent in the present day, than the 
neglect and destruction, as far as it possible, of a multi- 
tude of delicate instincts which, quite as much as great 
faculties, fill us with pleasure. The eye is untrained, or 
only artificially trained ; the natural ear is neglected in 
the midst of its elaborate tutoring, or only accustomed 
to discord ; the quick feelings are allowed to run riot, 
or condemned to be blunted \ the bright humor to 
sleep \ the buoyant elasticity to sink flat and dead. 
How full our life is ; how much we might enjoy it, and 
thank God for it ! But we overlook our treasures, and 



Pleasure. 155 

forsake them for the cold glitter of fairy gold, or the 
dead heaviness of substantial but unlacked, unsuitable 
bullion, till we find our error too late. And well it is 
if it only end in a long, wistful sigh of regret \ if, in spite 
of all our follies and imputations, we have still built on 
the rock of our Master and our duty. 

One of the very first lessons to be learned is, that 
true pleasure is a simple, lowly, homely, hearty thing, 
open, in a great degree, to most of us. Alas, alas ! 
that ever there should be such hard circumstances as to 
crush it out of existence. But to many, to multitudes, 
to the mass of those addressed, pleasure is an easy 
thing ; is nigh you, is ready to burst out into blossom 
over your head, and under your feet. Only condescend 
to lift up your eyes and look for it, and stoop and 
pluck it ; for, like everything else worth having, it is 
coy, and will not force itself on your reluctant or care- 
less grasp. 

It is scarcely necessary to say to a good girl that 
true pleasure cannot consist in what belongs to mere 
rivalry and gratified vanity. Such pleasure is, to treat it 
most gently, very empty and unsatisfactory ; and unless 
it is mixed with some genuine emotion, some honest 
assertion of honest claims, honest satisfaction in honest 
gifts, honest gratification in the honest pride of friends, 
it is about as noisy, hollow, and short-lived as that 
crackling of thorns beneath the pot, which the wise 
man banned. 

But it is incumbent to publish that pleasure, like 
duty, does not consist in anything like intellect and 
great mental attainment. To some, of course, it lies 



156 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

there, as even to the soldier it may lurk in the smoke 
of artillery, and the flash of steel ; and to another sol- 
dier of the same master, it may actually abide in the 
dark and noisome den in which he blesses God that he 
hails the dawn of a better day. But to all it is plainly 
in what affords them innocent gratification. It is a 
giant with a hundred hands \ a rainbow with a thousand 
dyes. It changes, Proteus-fashion ; it varies with a 
million temperaments. It may be something very dif- 
ferent to you from what it is to me. But it perfectly 
agrees in this respect, it is a harmless, nay, a softening, 
sweetening enjoyment, though we may not and need not 
go far out of our way to seek it, and must not sacrifice 
for it our cross of duty. We are bound to cherish it as 
one of the instalments of the future, one of the allevia- 
tions of the present, a bright drop of dew, a brave 
beam of sunshine sent to refresh and gladden us by 
our gracious Father. And the more childlike our 
hearts are, the more submissive and loving, the more 
readily we admit, the more freely we entertain the 
heavenly visitant. We cannot be true Protestants, we 
must be clinging very pertinaciously to the doctrines 
and practices of will-worship, asceticism, supereroga- 
tory mortification, if we do not recognize the obligation 
and privilege of drawing forth all the pleasures within 
our nature and locality, and carrying them heaven- 
wards. 

But if pleasures are countless as the leaves on the 
tree, and, like the leaves, not two alike, they fall also 
pretty generally into classes, and offer themselves in 
their divisions to particular orders of the community. 



Pleasure. 157 

To young girls, allowing for many exceptions, there 
exists a peculiar range of delights, capable of expand- 
ing and maturing with the growth of the woman, until, 
in full-dropping ripeness, balmy and mellow, they salute 
the last, lingering, earthly sensations of widowed wives, 
aged mothers, frail, spinsters hovering on the border- 
land. This range belongs largely to primitive nature, 
to flower-gardens, kitchen-gardens, fields, woods, moors, 
mountains ; to animals, wild and domestic, useful and 
ornamental, cows and poultry, birds and bees, dogs and 
cats. That a love for nature is latent in the great body 
of men and women is clear from its appearance under 
the most unfavorable circumstances, and after the long- 
est intervals. The successful merchant withdraws to 
his villa, and dedicates his hard-won leisure to mangel- 
wurzel and pine-apples, while his wife expatiates and 
luxuriates among her Alderneys and Cochin-Chinas. Of 
the retired tradesmen and their partners, whose ease 
and cash do not drag upon them, ninety-nine out of 
the hundred are amateur farmers or gardeners, or hold- 
ers of some description of live-stock. That so many 
only take to the teeming world — animate and inani- 
mate around them — late in life demonstrates that the 
original bent was choked and overlaid, and wanted 
excavation. Those who soonest disentangle it into 
breezy air and hardy life develop also the most whole- 
some bodies and souls, the sweetest and sunniest tem- 
pers. Questionless, there are instances of crabbed 
gardeners and gruff farmers, but what would those 
rugged specimens of humanity have been without the 
lilies and the wheat % And are not their roughnesses 



158 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

but outer excrescences % See them with the favorite 
child on the knee, the chosen friend at the elbow : why, 
they are tender philanthropists and kindly humorists in 
disguise. 

Now, with regard to this wide arena of health and 
happiness, in the green fields and the singing birds, it 
is a mistake to consider the girls of the present day 
before their great-grandmothers. It is not only that 
heedless youth, in its own headstrong, self-engrossed 
fashion, rushes along and misses the very sedative of 
which it stands in need \ but the habits of our present 
generation, the veiy accomplishments, the excessive 
pushing and straining after social importance, are all 
against simple, natural tastes. You will find the 
mother watching the young lambs coming into the fold 
with the careful ewes, while the daughter is off in a fit 
of the gapes : the aunt, contrasting the crimson-tipped 
oak-leaves with the blue-green of the juniper, and the 
olive-green of the wild rasp, while the niece is in fretful 
horror lest the sprays from the bushes tear her cum- 
brous crinoline. You will even discover the tottering 
old grandmother pulling up the gay celandine, or the 
feathery meadow-sweet from the waterside \ while the 
granddaughter has borrowed her brother's rod, and is 
fishing the pool, for "a lark," as she says, in her 
brother's slang, but, in reality, to attract the attention 
of all the half-scornful, half-scared fishers up and down 
the stream. 

It is not that the present race of young people are 
more frivolous than the last, but they are more removed 
from unconscious, close, constant study of nature. Yes, 



Pleasure. 159 

they are, in spite of science and art, perhaps, in some 
instances, because of superficial, undigested science and 
art ; in spite of far greater accommodation, — immensely 
increased facilities of travelling, greenhouses made easy, 
aviaries, aquarium?, — they are very generally more 
removed from our old homely, humble, blessed mother- 
earth, and her subordinate creatures. This is the case 
just as much reading is apt to end in little thinking, as 
popular lectures have often resulted in popular igno- 
rance, self-satisfied, defiant, all but incurable ignorance, 
for the reason that it wore a shallow disguise of knowl- 
edge. 

All the appliances of modern training include a 
danger of leaving our girls vain, arrogant, pretentious, 
and insincere. They have studied botany, but they 
don't care for their specimens one hundredth part that 
their mother cared for their hydrangea in the green-and- 
white striped stoneware pot, which was such a cold, 
hard substitute for the soft-stained, oozy brick. They 
don't mind their ferns and mosses as she prized the 
upper slice of carrot, which she cut and floated on a 
wine-glass full of water, and saw rear its shafts of 
feathers when the snow was lying thick in the valley ; 
or the cress-seed which she sowed on the moistened 
flannel over the cup, to astound and delight poor sick 
little Hughie. Ah ! you girls want the easy admiration, 
the frank, loving wiles of your mothers ! 

Our great-grandmothers, in the dearth of many other 
resources, though tmuch more of the fragrance of the 
mint and thyme in their herb-gardens, the sweetness of 
the fruit of their cherry-trees, the gayety of their larks' 



1 60 Papers for Thoughtftd Girls. 

songs, the stature of their calves, the fatness of their 
chickens, the familiarity of their pet lambs, even the 
smartness of their parrots, and tame starlings and spar- 
rows, than many of their descendants dream of doing 
of any plant or animal at home or abroad. 

The sciences are noble in their own way ; open-air 
sketching is a valuable power ; picnics are occasionally 
pleasant social reunions, but Charlotte Bronte" has told 
how little the agreeableness of a picnic has to do with 
burying one's face and heart in green leaves. We have 
all known picnic visits to ruins which were never looked 
at, to views which were never seen, to waterfalls which 
were missed. Picnics, in the old days, were named 
whims or follies : my lady's whim, or my lady's folly, to 
eat a syllabub or a bun under a tree, or on clover. As 
far as regards learning to know God's world, picnics 
(unless strictly family gatherings) will be whims and 
follies to the young always. 

No ; take nature quietly ; make a secret contract with 
her, or, at most, a threefold friendship between you two 
and a home-brother or sister. Don't mix her up too 
much with books. Look at her in her own simple, 
lovely light. Learn the shades and shapes of the trees 
from the belt in your own shrubbery; grow intimate 
with the moon, looking at her silver bow or her mellow 
autumn radiance, from your own parlor or drawing- 
room window, with your old father taking his nap at 
your elbow, and waking up to his game at whist or 
backgammon after the candles are lit ; or with your 
baby nephew stretching out his arms to that shield in 
the sky, and drumiriing with his feet against your knees 



Pleasure. 1 6 1 

from his station in your lap. You may visit a botanical 
or zoological garden occasionally with pleasure and 
profit, but you will never cull from the foreign plants 
and beasts and birds, not even from the Victoria Regina 
and the hippopotami, a tithe of the benefit to be won 
with little trouble from your beds of anemones and 
sweet-william ; or your canaries, with their quilted- 
flannel nest in the corner of their family cage ; or your 
brood of young turkeys, spotted brown, black, and 
creamy-white, like Paul Potter's cattle, and hectored, 
and protected by the bullying turkey-cock ; or your 
downy yellow ducklings, so soon waddling to the wil- 
low-fringed pond \ or the litter of puppies which your 
brother Harry is so glad that the covetousness of his 
friends enables him to permit Juno, poor lass ! to please 
her soft heart by bringing up, though they are only to 
weary and harass her. Get acquainted with every leaf in 
your garden, every stone in the mossy wall. You have 
great precedents. A French philosopher made a walk 
round, his garden fill two wonderful volumes. An Eng- 
lish painter caused a brick wall to occupy his canvas for 
three entire months. But do you only regard them in 
a humble, human spirit. 

Have pets, as your great-grandaunts and great-grand- 
mothers owned them in store. They may be profitable 
pets, as cows, goats, hens, pigeons ; or unprofitable, as 
love-birds, Java sparrows, Italian greyhounds, Russian 
cats. It was very refreshing to find an accomplished 
professional man writing the other day a delightful 
chapter on domestic dogs and their merits. Don't fear 
the waste of food, — unless, indeed, you are conscious 

R 



1 62 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

of starving some human being. What ! would you pre- 
sume to stint the lavish stores of the great Creator % 
Remember, he created all these creatures you are so 
ready to call useless ; and if human beings were con- 
demned by that same criterion of apparent uselessness, 
woe is me \ how many of us would be left 1 No mas- 
sacre in history would be equal to that great immola- 
tion of women and children, and men thrown into the 
bargain. Don't listen to that bitter or foolish saying, 
that they will only die one day and grieve you. Accord- 
ing to that selfish, morbid argument, you would not love 
your brother, for, alas, alas ! he will die one day, and 
your heart will be wrung, though the parting be but 
for a season. Believe, it is something very near the 

truth, — 

" He prayeth well who loveth well 
Both man and bird and beast. " 

The writer remembers well a poor woman telling how 
her daughter was won back from the sullenness of mad- 
ness by watching every morning, from the back-win- 
dows of the lunatic asylum, the fond gambols and 
caresses passing between a goat and her kid. 

Harriet Martineau has a sensible, lively hint to girls 
in the country on the impossibility of their wanting 
objects of interest and amusement, if they are only 
intelligent and active. Happily much of the ridiculous 
affectation of being ignorant of common rural objects 
is on the wane in the broad light of our day ; and we 
are more likely to meet with an extreme, exaggerated 
enthusiasm for colts and heifers, donkeys and goslings, 
than to be troubled with a high-flown scorn of their very 



Pleasure. 163 

existence. All that is untrue is bad, but, at least, we 
may receive the assumption of superior knowledge as 
the evidence of a more ample and genial standard of 
worth and beauty. 

One word, in addition, to those young persons who 
may be disheartened by having grown up with only a 
vague general sense of enjoyment in the world of nature ; 
a pleasant notion of blue skies and green fields, and 
pretty weeds in the hedges, but no intimate acquaintance 
or close communion with any of them. Do not be dis- 
couraged.. This is a taste which it is possible to begin 
to cultivate sedulously and successfully at any period of 
life, even to old age. The writer speaks from experi- 
ence. Brought up in a treeless district of the country, 
the commonest distinctions between the crisp, shining 
leaves of the beech and the leaves of the elm, " rough 
as a cow's tongue," were long unknown to her by sight. 
She was as full of her lush growth of fancies and feelings 
as any one. She was as blind and deaf as most girls to 
everything but the dimmest perception of nature's holy 
influences. The opening of her mind to these influences 
was not the least of the debt which she owed to the dear, 
wise, patient friend who taught her a cottage child's 
acquirements leaf by leaf ; who stretched her own 
knowledge to make her pupil distinguish the hues and 
lines on the bird's burnished wings and breast ; who 
went on with her listening to the roll of the waves, 
periodically peeping into a hedge-sparrow's nest, lifting 
reverent eyes to the flaming comet, hearkening to the 
blackbird's melodious song over the primroses and 
polyanthuses in the cold spring twilight, and the robin's 



164 Papers for Thoughtful Girls, 

cheerful note among the scarlet-streaked apples and 
dark-green mottled pears of the russet fall, — until 
something of the richness of earth's colors, and the 
deep but gentle symphony of her tones, was forced 
upon the heedless, inattentive heart and brain. 

Nature is God's book, in which we are to read our 
Father as in his written word, and she who neglects 
and turns her back on the study, will be ill-furnished in 
some respects for that consummation to which we are 
all devoutly looking. 



A LEAF FROM A DIARY. 

I AM in the country, and I must keep a diary at last ; 
not to count my mental or spiritual pulse, but to 
record, when the turkey-hens laid their first eggs \ when 
the sheep were clipped ; when this or that great misfor- 
tune happened, and the otter ate the fish. Buried alive, 
indeed ! I never felt less buried in my life. I have 
come to my kingdom, and my king is King Charlie, — 
dear, old, stout, crusty, uncomprehended brother Char- 
li e? — an d we 've been parted for three quarters of our 
lives. 

We 've had other views and relinquished them, and 
other friends not so faithful, and lost them. We've come 
together again to keep house for the rest of our days 
in the wilds, where Charlie is agent vcA factotum on my 
Lord's moors and newly brought-in land. And they 
think me " buried alive " ! Our house stands so directly 
southeast by east, that we catch the first rays of the 



Pleasure. 165 

sun ; and I have so much to do, that, dear heart ! I 
cannot tell where to begin, and can no more weary than 
I can knit a coverlet. I am aware I have sustained a 
dreadful loss in morning-calls and evening-parties ; but 
I trust I '11 survive that, and the rest is great gain. I 
was buried alive in a large town, among a crowd of 
acquaintances, when I was young and silly, and went 
with the multitude, and continually took things to heart, 
and had my feelings wounded ; but now I 'm going to 
do my duty, and keep old Charlie right and tight, and 
make a garden pay its own rent, after the example of 
the garden in the book that is in the windows of all the 
booksellers' shops, and on all the railway stalls ; I 'm 
going to get well acquainted with Nature before I 'm too 
old to study her fresh face, and get acquainted, too, 
with humanity, — not fine-lady humanity, or fine- girl 
humanity, or fancy-cottage humanity, in particular, but 
humanity wholesale, great and small, odds and ends ; 
humanity among big matrons and little maids, and peo- 
ple who have dirty faces, and keep unvarnished pigs. 
I 'm not going to be particular ; I 'm going to please 
myself and my company if I can. 

" Buried alive ! " I believe I 'm going to begin to be 
" healthy, wealthy, and wise," at last. 

I arrived a week ago ; Charlie was waiting for me at 
the coach ; for we 're so far beyond the habitable world, 
that we travel here by means of a coach. Poor, dear 
Charlie is n't communicative, but I always thought him 
suggestive ; and the way he looked at the ears of the 
pony in his curricle, and then at the tail of his whip, 
told me he had something on his mind. 



1 66 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

" You may n't like the place, Katie," he suggested. 

" May n't I, Charlie % No fears of that." 

And then he stared into my face, and laughed a short 
laugh of confidence. 

"No society, Katie." 

" I never heard of a place without society, Charlie, 
except in the backwoods, and then, I suppose, at the 
worst there are Indian wigwams, where the natives will 
either tomahawk you, or barter their moccasons for your 
calico." 

"Terrible rough set these old settlers on the moor, 
Katie; believe they're of gypsy blood." 

" More credit in bringing them in, Charlie, if we can 
bring them in. I '11 tell you what, we '11 begin with 
bringing in ourselves." 

" Where V 

"Within the golden gates of justice, mercy, and 
humility ; it 's not so easy on our own account, Charlie, 
man, that we need fold our hands for ourselves, and set 
about shying stones at our brothers." 

Charlie was silent for a long time. "Always the same 
honest, generous woman, and hardy now and hearty. 
We '11 do, Katie." 

I was as proud as a princess. 

We drove then along a bad road, with broken, strag- 
gling hedgerows, but with a grand fir wood on our right 
hand, until Charlie broke out again, " Unpropitious 
name, Katie." 

" What is it, Charlie ? You never told me, and I 
had to address my boxes where I addressed my letters, 
to Mr. Charles Durham's, at my lord's. If you had 



Pleasure. 167 

not come to meet me, I must have gone and raised a 
hue and cry after you at the Castle ; they would have 
judged me a forsaken young woman in a breach of 
promise of marriage case, and you a heartless deceiver 
and hardened villian." 

Charlie laughed his husky laugh. 

" We don't look like it ; not a bit romantic." 

" Speak for yourself, Charlie ; you 're a heavy, prosy 
old man." 

"And you 're fat, fair, and forty ; but it 's not roman- 
tic, ■ — the name, I mean." 

" What is it ? make a clean breast of it ; do, — Mud 
Hole?" 

"No; but it's Windy Walls." 

" O, it 's Windy Walls, is it ? then we '11 have plenty 
of the fresh air about which the public is raving." 

Charlie laughed once more, and pointed with his 
whip-hand. 

"There it is, Katie. It does n't look sheltered, 
though it is a famous place for plovers' eggs. 

It was an old farm-house an the edge of the new- 
found land, planted on the ridge of a water-shed, I be- 
lieve, without a growing tree within half a mile. I 'm 
thankful it is too much wood, and not too little, which 
hurts the health, and Charlie and I are stout enough 
to keep out the cold from our bones, and we will main- 
tain roaring fires, since we have the old tree-roots for 
nothing. These exposed stations are remarkable, too, 
for the growth of hardy flowers, China roses, carnations, 
and all common annuals. They do like the air. Give 
them plenty of sun and pure air, and they will not find 



1 68 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

fault with a stiff breeze, but blossom with their necks 
twisted right round the wrong way. I told Charlie so, 
while I caught at my bonnet-strings. What a gush of 
clean, cold gale ! it gave me an appetite for days \ and 
what a deal I had to effect. Would n't I have the 
making of my home % A ready-made, elegant home ! 
Pshaw ! a tame, paltry affair ! Was n't my ingenuity 
given me for some purpose, and sha'n't I deserve some 
credit of my kind, when Windy Walls is bright without 
and snug within, and enviable everywhere % Somebody 
or other wrote that if a woman could do nothing else, 
she could at least buy or rent a bit of ground, dig and 
sow it, rear and gather in her crops, and feel that she 
had not lived in vain. That writer deserved being lis- 
tened to. Go, ye idle, giddy girls ! ye vacant or tat- 
tling-women ; dig, and reap, and be wise. 

Now, I have not only to bring in a garden at Windy 
Walls, where Charlie has been living like a savage of a 
man, but to constitute a weather-stained, mouldy, half- 
empty old house a commodious, agreeable dwelling, 
and I will do it or die. The shorter my purse, the 
longer my renown. 

To-day, I rose and meditated on a shred-carpet, of 
scarlet shreds, a military achievement manufactured out 
of two old cavalry cloaks and yeomen's jackets of my 
grandfather's. I expatiated on the plan to Martha, 
who, I am sorry to say, was dull in taking it in, and 
threw cold water on its splendor, as if that had not 
been sufficiently done by the dulling, damaging fric- 
tion of the backs of men and horses on the original 
garments. 



Pleasure. 169 

" Coats is coats," was all that Martha would say. 

" No, Martha, coats is not coats under clever hands, 
and no genius worth speaking of ever existed who could 
not make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." 

Martha shook her head ; she made up her mind that 
Mr. Durham was a sensible, 'sponsible man, but Miss 
Durham was light in the head for her size" and years. 
I was more successful with the weaver, to whom I 
walked across after breakfast. He understood the 
thing in a moment, and undertook it for me, even con- 
ceiving an interest in the subject, regarding it from 
beneath his white eyebrows, and over his spectacles, 
while his toothless, canty wife became my loquacious 
friend on the spot, because I freely bestowed on her 
the overplus of material for a winter rug. I wonder 
why toothlessness and cantiness go so often together. 
Are our teeth our natural enemies, and do we rejoice 
when we have got well rid of them % or are we of a 
saturnine turn, and grin to show the world how we 
despise our own empty jaws'? 

I came home and contemplated the grounds. I may 
as well call them by a sounding name, since names are 
cheap. There may be convolvuluses and nasturtiums 
clinging to us next summer; but, at the present mo- 
ment, there are only purple thistles, and goat's-beard, 
and great flaunting yellow ragwort, and blue buglos, 
and little eyebright and thyme. Well, they 're very 
good in their way; a deal better than causeway and 
paving-stones ; the thyme especially smells pungently 
and sweetly of the fairy queen and her court. Charlie 
is too wheezy to read out Shakespeare now, but he 's 
8 



1 70 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

not too deaf to listen yet. At the same time, I 'm not 
going to torture him into being a student. I 've had 
enough of that. I once drove poor Charlie into some- 
thing like mischief — blind bat that I was — by my 
contemptible pedantry, and I owe him such amends, — ■ 
O, such amends ! To be sure he was always a great 
deal cleverer, as he is a great deal older than I am ; but 
he never was bookish. He 's intensely social in a quiet 
way. I could bet a pair of gloves he 's soon the best 
player of cricket in the round, though he is so many 
stones' weight \ and he could challenge the curate or 
the doctor or the schoolmaster at draughts and back- 
gammon. 

I filled two saucers with the thyme, that we might 
sniff at it, and yet not grow vulgar. Garden thyme 
and oil of thyme are odious, you know ; odious in Betty 
the cook. Even lemon thyme, which I must have for 
my bees, is a debatable dainty ; but wild thyme ! Wild 
thyme was the couch of Titania ; it is fit for ears polite ; 
it is quite a refined, intellectual, fanciful good. Hamlet 
and the grave-digger were right. We do make singular 
distinctions. 

In my examination, I spied such a capability, such a 
delightful, charming, endlessly varied capability ; a treas- 
ure a thousand times more precious than Miss Kilman- 
segg's "bright, beautiful golden leg." We have two 
windows in our parlor ; one to the front, where roses 
are to blow ; the other to the gable, looking into the 
farm-yard, into which the cattle-sheds and cow-house 
and stable open. Only think of that ! the busy, 
thronged, ever-changing farm-yard. Charlie is such 



Pleasure. 171 

an orderly old man, that he '11 keep it sweet and whole- 
some ; and we '11 have near us " the breath of kine " 
which Pallas loved, and which cured the poor consump- 
tive girl sent to breathe it from the chambers of nobles. 
We '11 have watch-dog, cocks and hens, ducks and 
geese, lambs, horses, cows, all our familiar friends. 
The peacocks and whole flocks of doves will come and 
eat the crumbs off the window-sill, as they do on the 
door-steps at the Castle. Darby and Joan will court 
before our eyes. The farm-yard will be our stage, with 
the scenes ever shifting ; the farm-yard will be our con- 
cert-room, our tea and scandal, our supper and rubber. 
We '11 never weary. We might have been " buried 
alive " in winter, when our flowers were all brown and 
bare ; but with our look-out among our subjects of the 
brute creation, — our faithful, fond, noble, beautiful 
subjects, — I '11 defy us to weary. The ancients were 
right with their gable-windows into their farm-yards. 
Every farm-house should have a gable window, and 
every gable window should look out on a pale, yellow 
straw-yard, well tenanted, lying at its feet. 

An old moorland farmer detected me trying to pull 
up a thistle to-day, and went home and sent his girl 
with the present of a pair of thistle gloves ; and I re- 
turned the compliment with an offer to knit him a pair 
of muffatees for his winter wear. Winter ! what must I 
not do before winter? I must not trust to Martha; I 
must learn to powder butter, cure hams, hang beef, and 
dry herbs out of my neighbors' gardens. The farmers' 
wives will laugh at me, but I will laugh back ; laugh 
and learn, as well as laugh and grow fat. I flatter 



172 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

myself I can bake cakes already, as I think the farmer's 
rosy girl will bear me witness. She sang me such a 
bouncing, frisky song. I must have her to sing it to 
Charlie ; he '11 drum on the table with his knuckles, 
though he has not a notion of tune ; and that causes 
his regard for music — his blundering, ignorant, in- 
stinctive regard — to be something touching to my 
mind. 

Am I too old to learn ] Never on this side of time. 
Thank God for that ! and Charlie and I did thank him, 
looking at the moon like a sentimental old couple, and 
taking kindly to our new home. 




VII. 



FRIENDSHIP. 




N one of Miss Edgeworth's tales (I think The 
Absentee) there is an instance of a lady de- 
ciding her selection from her suitors, by the 
happy man's being able to prove that he 
possessed a faithful friend ; and the test was by no 
means without its merits. In a former paper I alluded 
to the fact that long before Miss Edgeworth's day, 
novels, biography, and essays laid much stress on evi- 
dences of friendship as indications of excellence. A 
heroine, like Harriet Byron, had a host of friends, and 
although she may tempt us to think of " the hare and 
many friends," and we may feel that she must have 
been in some sort a victim to her popularity, still it 
would do no harm to a heroine of the present day to 
ask herself whether she could call forward a grand- 
mamma to bless her; an Uncle and Aunt Sedley to 
approve cordially of each stage of her career ; or even 
a set of cousins to sing her praises, after the faintest 
copy of the kindred of the incomparable Harriet ; and 
if not, what is the reason of the failure 1 Granting, in- 



1 74 Papers for Thoughtful Girls, 

deed, that the man or woman with a multitude of friends 
is a paragon, a phoenix, and has his or her own peculiar 
danger from the chivalry and devotion of the individu- 
al's court, the man or woman without a friend is surely 
singularly unfortunate, or singularly reprehensible. 

It has been said that women are incapable of true 
friendship \ but, like many other glib speeches, this is 
an assertion not only without foundation, but made in 
the face of a mass of proof to the contrary. There may 
be difficulties in the way of a calm, clear, steady, unex- 
acting friendship between man and woman, from the 
nature of the relation between them, though such friend- 
ships have existed by thousands \ but friendships be- 
tween woman and woman, with which we deal here, 
have flourished by tens of thousands. Those who 
believe the contrary, are no better than Turks in their 
estimate of women. 

Possibly, one reason for the charge of women being 
incapable of friendship, is that their friendships are 
more domestic, hidden, and retiring than those of men. 
Of course, we do not speak of the bathos of school-girl 
ecstasies, but of the strong, satisfying regard between 
modest, earnest, often-tried women. Men go out into 
the world, and frequently form their friendships far 
beyond the family circle, and quite independent of the 
ties of blood. Of the best women, it may be said that 
their friendships are those of their own households ; 
with them, friendship but adds its evergreen crown to a 
blood relationship. Sisters and cousins — at the far- 
thest, old school-fellows and neighbors — are generally 
the Davids and Jonathans, the Damons and Pythiases. 



Friendship. 175 

But within these limits, examples of as enduring, long- 
suffering, tender, noble friendship as ever knit together 
hearts, offer their manifold records. Madame de Se- 
vigne and her daughter, Fanny Burney and her sister 
Susanna, Anne Grant of Laggan and her former youth- 
ful companions, the Ewings and Harriet Reid, have 
left vivid, indelible traces on black and white of the 
great volume of their affection, and its faithful flow to 
death. 

Suffer young girls to make friends, and keep them as 
their, best human stay. They need not fear that they 
will prove false, if their own love be without dissimula- 
tion ; if they can cleave to their chosen companions in 
their adversity, and not love them one whit better be- 
cause of their prosperity ; if they will choose them like 
that hackneyed wedding-gown of Mrs. Primrose, because 
of qualities which will wear well. They need not fear, 
if they themselves will try to be humble, reasonable, and 
forbearing, will resolve not to expect too much of their 
friends, will not be very angry with them because of 
errors, will not refuse to forgive thern even when they 
commit faults, will always strive to bear in mind that 
" the true friend is a brother," and that the end of true 
friendship is to go on hand in hand, — each raising the 
other, each supporting the other, — ever upwards and 
onwards to the brightness and the peace of the better 
home in the many mansions of the Father's house. 

Honest friends, fond friends, constant friends they 
must be, my girls ; and after that proviso, care little 
whether they are fashionable friends, or distinguished 
in any way ; even be willing to lend them a portion of 



176 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

your own superior wisdom and goodness, if they are 
deficient, but well disposed and sincere in their esteem 
for you. Much progress in worth has been accom- 
plished under the shelter and countenance of a friend ; 
here, " freely you have received, freely give." Be will- 
ing, in a secondary sense, to " spend and be spent " 
for your friends \ don't meanly grudge your love and 
pains, and cautiously weigh every grain of their return. 
Bestow thorough respect and sympathy ; lively, consid- 
erate, affectionate attention in health ; devoted care 
and self-abnegation in sickness ; and without doubt or 
denial, be you wedded wife or solitary spinster, you 
will not fail in any circumstance to have and hold a 
tender and true friend. 

In the world there are two opposite corruptions of 
friendship, which are glaringly conspicuous. The one 
is the selection of high friends, who may pull us up, not 
in morals, but in power or place or fashion ; the other 
the taste for low company, where we may reign queen, 
be flattered instead of flattering, command rather than 
obey, indulge in all our ugly habits without censure. 
But human nature is the same ; these two abuses of 
friendship have their origin in the same source, — 
vanity and pride ; and sometimes the poles meet curi- 
ously in one person. As human nature is the same, 
young girls will at least coast these shoals ; but I 
surely need not say to good girls, to avoid them as con- 
tamination ; don't let them, if they can help it, pollute 
the name of friendship, if they would not lose their 
reverence for all that deserves reverence. 

My own opinion is, that a perfectly developed friend- 



Friendship. 177 

ship can scarcely exist, or at least attain its full, free 
expression, between those of widely different ages and 
stations, in spite of Wordsworth's lad, and his "Matthew 
seventy-two." It may be a very beautiful, beneficial, 
independent looking up and bending down, and in that 
light it ought to greet us continually ; but it is another 
connection altogether from close friendship. When a 
young girl makes a friend of one above her station, she 
is hardly likely altogether to escape at once experi- 
encing and inflicting pain, of which there is no chance 
among her equals. Her grand friend will unavoidably 
appear to overlook her sometimes, or will mortify her, 
or haply provoke her to envy by narrations of "springs" 
of adventure and interest, travel, pictures, music, books,, 
cultivated society, which may be entirely beyond the 
so-called inferior's reach ; and, at the same time, the 
better born or more richly endowed of the compan- 
ions will feel hurt by her friend's coyness, stiffness, 
pride, when she herself only meant to be kind and 
social. Again, with the humble friend the girl in the 
middle class will run the very same risks, only chang- 
ing the checkers ; and with the greatly increased peril 
of effecting something seriously detrimental to the per- 
manent well-being of the other, because a simple, scan- 
tily-educated girl is not by many degrees so well armed 
against an injury to her native dignity, self-respect,, con- 
tentment, and her just balance of social advantages, 
as a well-taught, well-read, thoughtful girl in a station 
above her. 

Therefore good and judicious parents and guardians 
are chary of unsuitable intimacies for their children, 



178 Papers for Thoiigktftd Girls. 

unless under their own eye, and within certain bounds. 
Yet these intimacies are safe enough, even for the 
thoughtless and weak, if the heart be but wholesomely 
set on duty, and salted with grace. 

The writer, after having stated her general objection 
to these friendships, would like to record her convic- 
tion, that occasions are constantly occurring which defy 
our ordinary standards, when such half-proscribed bonds 
become strong and tight, and bind soul to soul in dan- 
ger and trial with true love-knots, which death only will 
unloose, for a higher life to tie again firmly forever. 
Without question, such accidental alliances (as these 
are apt to be considered) have often proved providen- 
tial unions, calculated to confer mighty blessings, and 
to survive the artificial obligations which forbade them. 

People say truly, it is a respectable thing to see an 
elderly couple surrounded by old-fashioned, well-kept 
furniture, according much better with the tear and wear 
of years than bran-new upholstery of a higher cast, and 
more elegant material and manufacture. Our mother's 
gray hairs, and stout or lean persons, become their 
matronly though sober and rather quaint caps and 
shawls a thousand times better than they become an 
elaborate travestied edition of their youngest daughter's 
wreath of flowers and lace mantilla. In the same way, 
family friends are respectable, albeit sometimes trouble- 
some institutions. A long-established house, with but 
recent guests, varying with each varying phase of the 
household, is a very sorry sight. " Your own friend, 
and your father's friend, forget not," is a very gracious 
proverb of the wise man. 



Friendship. 1 79 

Here our fine folk of the middle classes might profit- 
ably borrow a lesson from the aristocracy whom they 
task themselves to imitate or mimic. Class fidelity, 
disinterested remembrance of ancient allies, persistent, 
persevering friendliness to fallen fellows, are the honor- 
able characteristics where noblesse oblige. 

One grievous flaw in our magnates of the middle class 
is the horrible, heartless snobbishness with which they 
learn to cut their cronies, and cast whole circles from 
them, as a reptile casts its slough, or a mealy butterfly 
its chrysalis. We would have our girls put up with 
some inconvenience, be capable of some self-sacrifice, 
to maintain their own friends, and their fathers' friends, 
intact. Be sure the one true friend, the invaluable 
counsellor, the joyous confidante, the loving consoler, is 
mostly to be cut out of such tried and trusty stuff; not 
out of the slight, dignified acquaintance of yesterday, 
the facile superior, won by base flattery or material gain, 
to be the reluctant abettor of follies, the yawning spec- 
tator of vanities, and the sneering satirist of absurdities. 
Your mother's contemporary may be narrow-minded and 
dogmatic, but she will tie on her bonnet with trembling 
fingers to run to your sick-bed ; she will be all the 
same to you, .or rather far more cordial and warmer- 
hearted because your father has lost money in an 
unlucky speculation, or even been compelled, with 
bowed head and aching heart, to read his name in the 
bankrupt list. She may find fault with you to your 
face ; but she will sternly rebut cruel, cowardly scandal, 
which attacks you like an assassin behind your back. 
Will you not bear, then, with a few truisms, and certain 



1 80 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

tiresome or aggravating peculiarities, were it only for 
the sake of her last kiss, and her " God bless you ! 
you Ve been mindful of old friends, my dear \ I trust 
we '11 meet again % " 

To have lightened a solitary hour, to have brightened 
a homely lot, to have cheered, for one afternoon, an 
invalid's depression, is worth a good deal of self-gratifi- 
cation. Reflect that you yourselves, in the march of the 
future, with its innumerable chances and changes, may 
be destined to misfortune and adversity. Certainly, 
even though you continue in reasonable affluence of 
health and wealth, you will at some time or other grow 
prosaic if not peevish, old-fashioned if not obsolete. 
Then, even if from no more exalted motive than doing 
as you would be done by, show yourself generous to 
those who have lost your advantages, if they ever pos- 
sessed them. 

Deserve friends among your equals, and cherish them 
for better, for worse, as God's gift, among the very first 
of gifts after his own presence ; be conscientious to- 
wards friends of another degree ; and be gentle, very 
gentle to your own friends, and your father's friends, of 
other days. 

DAME DOROTHY. 

<c * I A HESE two girls are great friends"; so said 
JL Miss Lavinia Blount to her old assistant, con- 
fidante, and cousin, Miss Sophy Blount, in her northern 
boarding-school, near a great northern town. It was 
an old-fashioned school, where there was more sewing 




DAME DOROTHY. 



Friendship. 1 8 1 

than reading, and more manners than accomplishments. 
Miss Lavinia was an old-fashioned woman, sharp and 
rigid, worried into crossness by boarders' flights and 
parents' fumes, and stiff with the incessant maintenance 
of her own angular code of manners. But Miss Lavinia 
had a heart, — ■■ an appendage the world is given to deny 
to her kind, notwithstanding they are not more covetous 
than the Jews, and Shylock established their community 
of interest with the public in that matter, even when he 
alternated, " My ducats, and my daughter." I wish all 
the fat, easy matrons, and all the bland, caressing 
matrons, had the brains which lay beneath Miss La- 
vinia' s turban, and the heart which beat behind Miss 
Lavinia's busk. 

"Ain't they something like what you and I were, 
Sophy, long ago at Alnwick ? " observed Miss Lavinia, 
in a softer tone. It was not easy to think of Miss 
Lavinia and Miss Sophy as thoughtless young things, 
but doubtless that event had been a historical fact at 
some period in the annals of the Percys and the North. 

An idea had struck Miss Lavinia, and when the girls 
courtesied to her, after they had closed their work-bags 
for the night, and were preparing to retire to their 
rooms, she called Miss Anne Baldwin and Miss Dorothy 
Fenton to stand before her chair. 

The girls were not conscious of any fault, so they 
were placid and smiling. It is just possible — I be- 
lieve it admits of a fraction of proof — that a school- 
mistress may be just and generous. Of course, she is 
generally a mean tyrant, — keeping company with girls 
seems to have this effect ; but occasionally, you know, 



1 82 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

just for exception's sake, you may suppose her a wor- 
thy soul in buckram. 

" The holidays occur next week, and I shall be very 
busy till then, and you, Dorothy, and you, Anne, return 
home for good immediately afterwards." 

" Yes, ma'am," answered the girls at once, with 
broad smiles, associating the full swing of liberty and 
indulgence with home, as it would be a great pity they 
should fail to do; but yet their dancing eyes were 
caught by Miss Lavinia's hawk's eye, and fixed a little 
wistfully on her furrowed forehead. Sundry festivals 
she had instituted, games she had fostered, sicknesses 
she had nursed, and, above all, Miss Lavinia's face, on 
a summer night, or a winter afternoon, when, all tasks 
done, she had merely sat and contemplated her hum- 
ming, buzzing charge, — these fascinated them and lin- 
gered in their imaginations. 

" You have been great friends, you two ; see that you 
don't soon forget each other. My cousin Sophy and I 
were bedfellows when we had curly heads of our own, 
and we have kept to each other through life, and stood 
by each other through good and bad. I believe we '11 
die under the same roof, and be buried in the same 
corner of the churchyard." 

The girls looked doubtfully at each other, perhaps 
they gave a little involuntary rejecting wave of their 
cropped heads. Dying and burying made their flesh 
creep ; they seemed pale and cold as the moon to the 
young girls. The association between Miss Lavinia 
and Miss Sophy had not much to recommend it in 
their eyes; they saw only its work-a-day character; 



Friendship. 183 

they did not understand its faithfulness. As for them, 
they would not be like Miss Lavinia and Miss Sophy, 
though these two women were good, kind mistresses, 
and they had a respect and a liking for them ; they 
would be something entirely different. However, they 
had no difficulty in promising warmly to Miss Lavinia 
that they would be true as steel to each other. 

Miss Lavinia dismissed Anne Baldwin, and retained 
Dorothy Fenton. " Dorothy," she said, looking into a 
little face whose chief charm was its demureness, " you 
know you are younger than Anne ; your father, though 
a respectable man, is not of so much consequence in the 
country as Squire Baldwin. You found Anne the head 
girl, oldest, cleverest (and cleverness goes some way in 
a school), liveliest, grandest. Anne had plenty of 
friends ; but she selected you, a quiet little thing, from 
the moment that she set eyes upon you. If you had 
not been marked out by Anne's choice, I am afraid 
you would have been rather lost sight of among your 
companions, and Miss Sophy and I could not have 
helped it much, though we had tried ever so hard.. 
Anne brought you out, she cured your homesickness, 
she encouraged your shamefacedness, she made you 
contented and happy. But, Dorothy, though Anne did 
you great good at an important stage of your life, this 
has happened when you were two young girls, and you 
will live to hear and read a great deal in disparagement 
and scorn of girlish likings ; still I think you will be 
base if you forget it." 

" But I will not forget it, Miss Lavinia," Dorothy 
pleaded, with widening, deepening eyes. 



1 84 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

" I hope not, Dorothy \ I hope not ; but don't be 
too sure in your own strength ; our friendships are 
sometimes cruelly tried ; and I have seen girls and girls 
interlace their arms and press their cheeks together 
for a whole year, and not know each other on the 
streets within six little weeks after. It is bad, Dorothy. 
I hope better things of you, but I want to warn you. 
You never heard me flatter ; so I think you will believe 
when I say I consider you the steadier girl of the two. 
Anne is a fine, handsome, kind girl, sure to be admired 
and liked ; but she is rash and impulsive. You are 
still, firm, and persevering. It may be that Anne will 
be volatile, but you must lend her your discretion. It 
may be that Anne will have her troubles, and fight 
against them like a wild bird in a cage, but you will 
stand by and coax the bird to eat and drink ; and when 
the time comes to open the cage-door, you will fly with 
it to its nest, Dorothy Fenton." 

Dorothy did not answer, but she looked with her shy 
eyes full into Miss Lavinia' s face. There was some- 
thing puzzled, even a little stolid and stubborn, in her 
expression. Many persons would have been mortally 
disappointed in it ; but Miss Lavinia judged othenvise. 
" That girl will certainly do what I have said, so that 
the opportunity be granted to her." Who knows but 
she may " save a soul alive, and cover a multitude of 
sins " % and Miss Lavinia rose and went about her 
night's duties. 

Anne Baldwin and Dorothy Fenton went back to 
homes plain and boisterous, according to the fashion 
of the time and place. They entered into the society 



Friendship. 185 

of their age and station, and attended the usual num- 
ber of merry-makings in their scarlet morocco shoes, 
short-waisted gowns, and hair in clubs, lifted up on the 
crowns of their heads, rendering Anne Baldwin, a tall 
woman by nature, a giantess by art, and Dorothy Fen- 
ton a very funnily toupeed little girl. The girls did not 
reside in the same district, and did not meet above 
once or twice a year • but they kept up a regular cor- 
respondence by letters \ queer, original letters, not very 
well spelt, or very grammatically phrased (save Miss 
Lavinia !), but quite individual epistles, full of a flow of 
nonsense on Anne's part, and showing a tripping march 
of sense on Dorothy's side. Yet, strange to say, it was 
the sensible, painstaking letters which were the most 
affectionate in their constancy. There were interreg- 
nums in Anne's quips and cranks, and then there were 
sure to arrive two or three pages in succession of Doro- 
thy's comical sedateness, when Anne reproached her- 
self violently for her neglect, and was extremely atten- 
tive till the next temptation. 

In course of time the girls married. All girls mar- 
ried then as duly as they put up their back hair, and 
wore whalebone in their sleeves ; and one reason of 
the uniformity of the custom was, that they regarded 
marriage purely on the Turkish principle of fatality, 
and married when they were asked, without any vexa- 
tious delay on the question of taste, or I am afraid of 
feeling. There is positively something imposing in the 
equanimity with which our ancestresses accepted their 
fates, often without moving a muscle to influence 
them. 



1 86 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

"If it 's ordained I maun take him, 
Who will I get but Tarn Glen ? " 

was a sentiment thoroughly credited and universally 
followed. Either there was a mistake in the theory 
that every woman had her tide to love and be loved, 
or the mischievous Pucks must have been particularly 
busy at that season of the world's history. 

Whom did Anne and Dorothy marry 1 Be sure not 
two likely lads as they were girls. Anne married an 
old bachelor, finical and fractious ; Dorothy married a 
blustering, rough-riding widower, with half a score of 
children, some of them as old as herself. Mr. Cross- 
thwaite of Crossthwaite was caught by Anne's boldness 
and blitheness ; so different from his own pining, peev- 
ish humors. Mr. Annesley of Waveringlea was caught 
by Dorothy's youthful staidness. But what caught the 
girls ] Nothing but the divine right of matrimony. 
They did not even name it as an inducement, though 
they reckoned it a lucky chance that the two square, 
solid, unornamented gray-stone houses of Crossthwaite 
and Waveringlea, built as if to resist storms, were raised 
on lands which marched acre to acre in that Valley of 
the Tyne, where the smoke of the blast-furnaces was 
just beginning to shrivel the apple-blossoms in the 
Tyne orchards. 

If any girl is tempted to be as regardless of conse- 
quences as these women of a bygone generation, — 
and satirists harp on such to this day, — they had bet- 
ter ascertain if they have spirits to bear the fortune in 
the sequel ; not mount to Arthur's throne if they can- 
not wind Arthur's horn. What lives Anne and Dorothy 



Friendship. 187 

led ! What trials they endured ! Not that they com- 
plained often. Not that they considered their lots par- 
ticularly hard, or reflected on Providence after the first 
flush of their sanguine simplicity leapt out in their 
honeymoons. 

Mr. Crossthwaite was a weary, wizened, what they 
called in old language, humorsome man ; to be felt for 
too, because he was poor and proud ; and if he had not 
a great soul, he had certainly a sensitive temper. His 
aged querulousness was more than a match for Anne's 
youthful cheerfulness. In place of Anne crossing and 
racking Mr. Crossthwaite, it was he who crossed and 
racked Anne, until the determined, headstrong woman 
waned into a being as fretful and nervous as himself. 
And all the time, Mr. Crossthwaite no more meant to 
injure his wife than any other honorable, Christian gen- 
tleman who worries himself and his partner out of all 
the calmness and elasticity of existence. Anne knew 
that he was innocent of evil intentions ; and she herself 
was neither malignant nor revengeful, though she was 
cross many a time, so cross, that she declared they had 
been called Crossthwaite on purpose. She submitted 
to his whims and crotchets, piques and passions, like a 
tolerably resigned, hapless slave, and only once thought 
of flying in his face, breaking from his bonds, running 
away, and setting up a separate establishment. That 
was when Mr. Crossthwaite had a bitter quarrel with 
Mr. Annesley, and each gentleman forbade his wife, on 
the pain of his utmost displeasure, to pass the threshold 
of his neighbor. They said nothing of the hills and 
fells, however, and there the two middle-aged women 



1 88 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

held a tryst like a pair of lovers. I think there was 
something far sadder and more pathetic in that single 
rendezvous on the hillside, and seat on the turf-dike, 
than in many lovers' meetings and partings. No future 
to look forward to, no entire and perfect union in antici- 
pation • only the privilege of sharing each other's cares 
and sorrows ! Two beaten women, in caps with lace 
borders, and black bonnets, and coats not unlike their 
husbands' driving-coats, and uncouth, country mittens, 
holding each other's hands, and looking into each 
other's sore-lined faces ! 

Anne raged and cried like a frank, impetuous woman. 
Mr. Crossthwaite was ill to please ; so fault-finding, 
that no servant would put up with him. It was lonely 
at Crossthwaite without either chick or child. Anne 
would have made up to the next heir, but Mr. Cross- 
thwaite had a spite at him, and was sure he would start 
a furnace in the old rookery whenever he (Mr. Cross- 
thwaite) was gone. Anne would not mind it, if Mr. 
Crossthwaite sank for iron and smelted it under the 
windows \ there would be some stir, and some glow 
about the place ; the roughest Northumbrian burr of 
the miners and keelmen would be better than the croak 
of the crows that was so dismal, or Mr. Crossthwaite's 
thin voice snap, snapping at everything and everybody. 
He was not aware of it, but he was killing her by 
inches. And now, Dorothy, her old schoolfellow, — 
Do, who listened to her, and comforted her, and 
helped her, if ever woman did another, — she was to 
see her no more. Anne could not bear this last drop 
in her cup, she could not bear it ! (A hard saying 



Friendship. 189 

that ; not to bear the cross which we have helped to fit 
on our own shoulders.) Dorothy had been listening 
with her old stillness, which rendered her a welcome 
recipient of her vivacious neighbor's rush of fun and 
folly once. 

I think it was Mr. Annesley who set aside Dorothy 
by that title of Dame Dorothy, to hold her distinct in 
his memory from another dame, his first helpmate. At 
any rate, she was commonly known in the country, and 
she was mostly mentioned at Waveringlea as Dame 
Dorothy. Her name remained on a grimy Tyne ship 
long after it had died away from living lips. She was 
a very close woman ; one of those women whom the 
open, indifferent world is inclined to regard with dis- 
trust, and who, therefore, become peculiarly the prop- 
erty of their family and friends, remain devoted to 
them, are prized by them as gold. 

To all Mrs. Crossthwaite's boiling-over confessions, 
Dame Dorothy had said little or nothing of her own 
experience. It was only by vague but persistent rumor 
that Anne had acquired a notion that all was not well 
at Waveringlea, that Dorothy — quiet, composed Doro- 
thy — had her own contentions. Now Dorothy just 
lifted the veil ; gave a glimpse of the husband, not 
unkind in his better moments, but in his worse, gross 
in his habits and shameful in his excesses ; of the step- 
children, riotous and rebellious, straining at her reins, 
and indignant at her rule ; of her own children, looked 
upon as aliens and intruders ; and of her own faith and 
honesty suspected every hour, because the little ones 
were her flesh and blood. 



1 90 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

Anne shrank back horrified. 

But Dorothy was quiet ; Dorothy was not calling 
herself a victim ; Dorothy was not thinking of throwing 
down her trust, and escaping out into the wide world 
to live for self and ease and pleasure. • 

Like cold water to a fevered man, or the fresh breeze 
to a fainting body, Dorothy's patience and self-posses- 
sion came across Anne's passions. Anne grew calm 
under the influence ; she rose up in her right mind. 
" It is true we all have our battles to fight ; we must do 
our best, my lass," she granted gently. There is some- 
thing very touching in a high-spirited woman's meek- 
ness. There is something also that " gars the heart 
grow grit " in girlish appellations, exchanged by shriv- 
elled lips. 

" Dorothy," said Anne, with a sorrowful smile, " do 
you remember when we first came Tyne-ways, I once 
nearly quarrelled with you, because you chanced to 
sit above me at the table at the Oakshaw gathering 1 
But the next time you took the lowest place, though 
your husband was the older, weightier man, and you 
smiled and nodded up to me. I never saw you look 
so gay." 

Life went on wearing its channels deeper, and sealing 
the impression of its scars. Mr. Crossthwaite, from 
being a discontented, restless man, waxed irritable and 
jealous, to a degree that was little short of mania. 
Anne dared no longer resist or oppose him. Anne 
grew to quake at that white, worn face, those quaver- 
ing accents, and clutching fingers, more than Dorothy 
dreaded her husband's thick, stuttering voice, stagger- 
ing step, and blind, purposeless fits of fury. 



Friendship. 191 

Mr. Crossthwaite had always been offended by the 
iron-works. A narrow-minded, arrogant man, he hated 
to see another class rising up to crow over, thrust aside, 
and trample down the smaller squires. He had not the 
funds to work the minerals on his own property, and he 
took an insane pride in refusing the largest bribe to 
lease them to others. 

Waveringlea bordered Crossthwaite, Mr. Annesley 
had reason to suppose that the same metals were to be 
found on both estates. He had proposed trying their 
nature, and bring them into the market himself; but 
his irregular, wasteful life had left him with little power 
for enterprise. At last, when some additional fuel fed 
the flame of his feud with Mr. Crossthwaite, he swore 
he would be even with his adversary on this score. 
Nay, he would get his foot before him, and leave Cross- 
thwaite far in the rear. 

Mr. Crossthwaite might not choose to bore and dig 
for his own stone, and blast it when secured ; but he 
could not prevent Mr. Annesley turning up and smelt- 
ing his. There, right in front of the windows of the 
old Northumbrian mansion-house, would rise the pyra- 
mids of red brick, belching fire and smoke, the rows of 
mean laborers' houses, the heaps of calcined ore, the 
pegs of dull, leaden-colored metal. What although 
the sky should be all ablaze of nights with the fur- 
nace-flames, and the roar be like the roar of the sea, 
and drowsy darkness and quiet should forsake the 
neighborhood forever? What although the sickening 
fumes of the roasted stone should be carried by the 
lightest wind to blacken the linen bleaching on Mrs. 



192 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

Crossthwaite's green, to blight Mrs. Crossthwaite's flow- 
ers in their straight beds, and ascend far above her 
sweet Nancies and March violets, to turn the weak 
stomach and the dizzy head of the fine gentleman who 
now owned Crossthwaite % Mr. Annesley could not 
help that, he declared, with a horse-laugh. In this free 
England of ours, every man acts for his own interest, 
and lets his neighbors' concerns take care of them- 
selves. 

Mrs. Crossthwaite wrote to her old friend, Mrs. An- 
nesley, a piteous letter, very different from her old let- 
ters with their merry chronicles of parties, partners, and 
fashions. If Mr. Annesley did as he threatened, she 
believed Mr. Crossthwaite would go mad. She did not 
think his life would be safe, or hers, or the Annesleys. 
She prayed to be saved from her misery. She implored 
Dorothy to interpose, and stand between her and her 
doom. 

Dorothy approached the subject in her own way. 
She addressed Mr. Annesley one day when he was at 
home alone with her in her sitting-room, in his senses, 
and clumsily kind, with a species of contrition, as he 
was wont to be on these occasions. 

"Tony, I've not been a bad wife to you." 

" You have not, Dorothy ; but I had rather that you 
did not remind me you 've done your duty ; I like to 
find that out for myself, my woman ; I 've a prejudice 
on the point," he remonstrated with himself and her, 
as if he foreboded reproaches, or his conscience galled 
him. 

" And I 've not asked any favors of you, Tony." 



Friendship. 193 

" O, is that it % " brightening greatly. " It is the silk 
gown at last, and you shall have it, Dame Dorothy, as 
thick as leather, and as shiny as seal-skin, if money can 
procure it. The first dame's shall be nothing to it, for 
I must confess, though she was the bigger woman, you 
are the better bargain." 

" Tony, will you delay the mine in the Beck field, for 
my sake % " 

Annesley's brow grew black, and his veins began to 
swell on his forehead, and to tighten his neckcloth. 

"It is only delay, Tony ; that man's life is a bad 
one." 

" It shall be in that man's life ; it would not be 
half worth, if he were not here to see it," shouted 
Annesley. 

" I know you are short of money ; you will be better 
provided for the outfit when a few more years have 
come and gone, and the mortgage is paid and done 
with. I will save every penny of money I can lay by 
for you in the mean time. 

" If I could not get the money to borrow, I would 
beg it, my wife." Tony mocked her. 

" You remember, I would not consent to Martin's 
coming home again, because he was wild and frantic 
when interfered with ; I will try him another time, 
Tony. And I was pressing you to send away little 
Susan to school, that she might have the same advan- 
tages which her sisters received, and which I enjoyed 
myself for that matter ; but I think I will manage to 
give her what I know at home, and avoid straitening 
you in that quarter." 
9 



1 94 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

He sat looking at her with a strange expression. He 
was a rude, ungoverned man, but he was not incapable 
of responding to rare magnanimity. 

" I do not understand you, Dorothy," he said at last ; 
" you have taken me aback \ but I see the sparing that 
venomous, puny caitiff, Crossthwaite, is very near your 
heart, else you would not make these offers. What has 
his wife done, that you should sacrifice yourself for her ] 
I reckon it is the love that many waters cannot quench 
between you. I cannot fathom it, but I will not be 
the man to drown it. I will not be such a cruel villain, 
for all that man's wicked insults. Here, Dorothy, I 
say it with my hand on the Book, lest I should be 
tempted to take back my word, I will not sink the 
mine in the Beck field while Michael Crossthwaite is 
to the fore." 

Michael Crossthwaite lived on, unaware of the res- 
pite, insensible to the interference which had saved him 
from destruction. And Dame Dorothy could not do 
enough for her husband, or beg his pardon more hum- 
bly in her unobtrusive manner, though he never re- 
minded her of the obligation, or complained of the de- 
ferring of his hopes and wishes. Nay, he did not seem 
hurt by his concession and pledge \ he was, if anything, 
a shade more moderate in his behavior, and when he 
was not beside himself, he was kinder and kinder to 
Dorothy. 

One cold winter morning, when the water was frozen 
two inches in the water-barrel and the horse-trough, 
when the white clouds were curdled in the greenish- 
blue of a December sunrise, when the drowsy farm-folk 



Friendship. 195 

were only creeping abroad in the wreath of mist which 
hung over the mansion and its offices, and Dorothy 
had gone into the family-room to set out the children's 
bread and milk, and inspect the toasting of Mr. Annes- 
ley's ale, and the infusing of her own cup of tea, she 
was startled by a sharp tap on the thick glass ojf the 
window. A tall, woe-begone woman, with her clothes 
huddled on her back, and her hood tied over her sleep- 
ing-cap, stood outside among the hoar-frost. 

"Anne Baldwin, can this be you % n 

" Yes, it is Anne Baldwin come back again. He 's 
gone, Dorothy, poor Michael Crossthwaite is gone from 
this world ; he will never vex anybody more." 

"When did it happen, Anne? Come in and rest 
yourself, and swallow something warm to put life into 
you. Did you want help, that you walked over to me 1 
Why did you not send, and I would have gone to you 
at any hour, night or day?" 

" I cannot stay, Dorothy ; I cannot see his enemy ; 
but I came over on purpose to tell your husband of the 
death. Basil Crossthwaite, the heir, will take posses- 
sion to-day, and he will only wait till after the funeral 
to sink his mine. Your husband must have the first 
chance; it is but justice, Dorothy. I have left my 
dead husband to strangers, to do your husband jus- 
tice." 

" Poor soul ! did she face the biting wind, and the 
dark morning, after she had seen his spirit pass, and 
wander here alone to see me get fair play, to give me 
notice that I might work out my ends, — me that would 
have struck him where he lay? Do you think she cared 
for him, Dorothy ? " inquired Annesley hoarsely. 



196 Papers for Thoughtful Girls, 

" I think she cares for him now, Tony ; she forgets 
all else save his sufferings and his departure. It is the 
way with many a woman at a time like this. I dare say 
she blames herself at this moment that they were not 
happier; it was herself she was reflecting upon, not 
him, when she said he would never vex anybody more." 

" Keep her, Dame Dorothy, or fetch her back • let 
her take shelter, in her adversity, with her old friend ; 
she '11 have a cold coal to blow at over yonder at Cross- 
thwaite. Michael Crossthwaite did not put aside a six- 
pence for her, and he was on bad terms with Basil 
Crossthwaite. You don't think the children will vex 
her ? They 're bad enough, but they '11 not oppress a 
defenceless widow woman. I 'd turn them to the door, 
if I believed that of them." 

" I 've no great fear for the children ; Anne had 
always a fine way with young people. If she were 
recovered from this blow, she would deal with them a 
sight better than I can do ; she would win their con- 
fidence, and help them to a bit of pleasure, and they 
would never think her false. But I dare not, Tony, for, 
though you would not say a word to harm her when 
you were yourself, — I know you would bite your tongue 
out sooner, — some night when the wit was out, you 
might turn upon her." 

" O Dorothy, don't be so hard upon me ! " groaned 
Annesley. 

" Yes," continued Dorothy, in her even, steadfast 
tone ; " and after what you 've done for her, I would 
rather die than see my husband maltreat the woman 
whom he had bent to the earth with a benefit, and that 
woman Anne Baldwin." 



Friendship. 197 

" Dorothy, I '11 never forget myself, and disgrace you, 
my girl. Give me the chance ; I '11 rather sit lightly to 
my cups, and come home as sober as his Reverence 
for the remnant of my days." # 

And Tony Annesley was as tender and respectful to 
Anne Baldwin as he was toward Dame Dorothy, in the 
latter end of his life. The effect of the honor and 
attachment of these two women did not end with them. 
The connection between Dorothy and Anne was beau- 
tiful. It brought out the best traits of their characters, 
and these traits must have ultimately made their way 
with the most rugged natures. The bright shining of 
the pure regard between the two women must . have 
been finally reflected from the dullest eyes. Besides, 
it was true, — what Dorothy stopped to record, — 
frank, high-spirited, impressionable Anne Baldwin^ even 
crushed by misfortune, was a thousand times better 
fitted for a middle-woman and a peacemaker in a fam- 
ily, than reserved, self-contained Dorothy Fenton. 




VIII. 



LOVE. 




THOUGHTFUL, kindly writer has spoken 
of the three great facts of life as birth, love, 
and death ; and again, of the common in- 
stinct by which everybody listens to a love- 
story of any kind. If young girls would treat love as 
one of three serious facts, and all false representations 
of it as lies, and, like all lies, base and degrading, their 
best friends would be saved a great deal of fruitless 
trouble. 

It is hard to deal with young girls when, according 
to their different dispositions, quite as much as their 
different up-bringings, they begin, under the classes of 
fanciful, forward, foolish children, or matter-of-fact, pru- 
dent, bashful, blithe young women, to ponder "love's 
young dream." 

My thought is that love, more than marriage, is made 
in heaven ; that it is an inspiration which descends upon 
us without our knowledge, and often without our con- 
sent. Therefore, I would never presume to dictate the 
when, how, and whom of love. I would only presup- 



Love. 199 

pose that no good girl will consciously indulge and con-, 
summate by matrimony, a love for one whom she is 
forced to see is an utterly unworthy man. Granting 
this great barrier, true love will be its own best de- 
fender and avenger. I believe there is not half the 
danger incurred by its presence that is risked by its 
absence. I believe if the multitude of warnings against 
love in general were addressed solely against false love, 
it would be more for the moral benefit of society ; that 
is, if society would listen to the advice and lay it to 
heart. It is against spurious love that I would warn 
girls. I would disabuse love of all but its individual 
mystery, — delicate, hidden, and sacred as the religion 
of the soul. 

With regard to the universal existence of a conse- 
crated passion, human, yet partaking of the Divine, 
and which reaches forward ever into eternity, — why 
not openly acknowledge it ; talk with reverence of it ; 
accept it as a matter of faith, and often of example % 
Why make a forbidden topic of that which caused 
Jacob to serve fourteen years for Rachel, and count 
them but as so many days, for the great love which he 
bore her; Isaac, to be comforted for the loss of his 
mother, when Rebekah rode forward to meet him in 
the glow of the eastern twilight ; faithful Elkanah to 
say to weeping Hannah, Was he not better to her than 
ten sons % proud Michal to place the image in her bed, 
and speed young David's flying footsteps'? Rather 
gather and culminate all its noble heroism, its patience, 
its fortitude, its tender mercy, and nurture yourselves 
in them. If you have been accustomed to regard the 



200 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

holy fire, you will be the less tempted to fill the cen- 
sers of your hearts with unholy fire, — Greek fire, scat- 
tering destruction on all around. 

There is nothing we have more need of in our luxu- 
rious, bargaining, scoffing days, than the preservation of 
the belief in all Christian heroism ; and let us humbly 
thank God that we have lived to see abundant testimony 
borne to it in the horror of " the blood and flames and 
vapor of smoke " of the Crimean and the Indian wars. 
Once believe, in your deepest natures, that true love 
is an embodiment of this heroism, and you will revolt, 
at its idle mockery in the shape of trifling, interested, 
vain flirtations. You will shrink from exposing it, ren- 
dering it hard, coarse, petty, and mean, through the 
incessant, bold, unblushing chatter of pert, irreverent, 
sordid, shallow, brainless, heartless, unhappy young 
people. You will loathe coquetry : you will reject 
with contempt all the low models of queens of routs 
and promenades, all the wretched praise of haughty, 
insolent, unfeeling, untrue women, with which the bad 
side of our literature furnishes you ; you will turn 
eagerly and gladly to Milton's Eve, and Shakespeare's 
Desdemona and Cordelia, and Sir Walter's Alice Lee 
and Catherine Glover, or even to his frolicsome, warm- 
hearted Catherine Setoun, his defiant, candid Die Ver- 
non \ to Mrs. Gaskell's noble Margaret Helstone, and 
her erring, repentant Mary Barton ; to Miss Mulock's 
Dora Johnstone; and Miss Manning's Princess Leonara, 
and her still more queenly, modest, pitiful Mrs. Clarinda 
Singleheart. You will have your own lawful, chivalrous, 
Christian romance, and will shake off the very dust from 



Love. 20 1 

your feet, pertaining to worldly society and false gods, 
and shameful heroes and heroines. 

Do not fear, too, to have the comical side of love 
and love-making touched upon. True humor no more 
destroys soundness, dignity, sweetness, and pathos, than 
it soils our precious old ballads, our more precious old 
human life. There are very few grave and lofty ele- 
ments in our manhood or womanhood, which, as they 
are worked out in flesh and blood, have not their ludi- 
crous balance. It is recorded with honor to us, and 
on sufficient testimony, that the more entire our trust 
in our fellows, and the fonder our appreciation of their 
fine qualities, the more readily we begin to play with 
what strikes us as whimsical and grotesque in their 
composition. Thus friends bandy jests ; thus there 
is nothing pleasanter than to see loving children mer- 
rily stroking against the grain certain odd hairs in 
the coats of indulgent parents, who submit to the 
process (which they know they can end by a glance 
or a word) with the exceeding satisfaction of well-con- 
ditioned tabby-cats, whose kittens will sport with their 
whiskers ; or of benevolent ewes, whose wayward 
lambkins will lie down beneath their mother's chins. 

Then let old and young fire off their brisk battery 
of harmless time-out-of-mind jokes on courtship and 
matrimony ; their sly observations, their provoking sa- 
gacity, their diverting cross purposes. Only don't think 
that the whole affair is a joke, else you may awake one 
black morning to find it very sad and earnest, and be 
compelled, in sorrow and despair, to turn affrighted 
faces to the bitter contrast : 
9* 



202 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

"There was singing in the parlor, 
And daffing in the ha' ; 
But they canna dicht the tears now, 
So fast they down fa\" 

A whipped syllabub all froth would be a very light dish 
indeed. Nothing but trifle would make a most unsatis- 
factory, unrefreshing meal. Take, then, both the shade 
and the sunshine \ the deep, cool strength and purpose 
which lies in the belt of shade, and the joy which glints 
in the beam of sunshine. 

If our girls are busy performing their duties, cultivat- 
ing their talents, thankfully and gratefully indulging in 
a thousand fresh, healthful pleasures, they will scarcely 
be betrayed into the pure folly, the spurious sentiment, 
the jaded love of excitement, the noxious excesses 
which every now and then sprout out into the notice 
of the world, and shock and distress pure minds, that 
have the fear and the love of God before their eyes. 
It is, in almost every case, our disengaged girls, the 
gadders on our streets, the flaunters before society, the 
showy, frivolous, arrogant, reckless gamblers for matri- 
monial stakes, who thus fall under just condemnation. 
We need not dread over much this miserable end for 
those who have grown up and continue to dwell in safe, 
pure, religious homes ; and we can pray for them, that 
they may be delivered from the sudden, overwhelming 
rush of temptation and violent passion, which we grant, 
with sad awe, it is just possible may overcome and 
engulf the wisest and best of our corrupt humanity. 

An evil bulking far more largely in our ordinary 
circles, and among the girls who compose them, is the 



Love. 203 

unreasonable and exaggerated view which is taken of 
the promotion obtained by marriage ; and the tempta- 
tion thus presented to a girl of being fairly dazzled by 
the first opportunity of occupying this eminence among 
her sex, and investing herself with this matron's crown. 
The peril is greatly increased by the stolid silence which 
is preserved in many families on the highest of human 
affections, or the derision with which the lightest allu- 
sions to the most prevailing of human influences is re- 
ceived. A young girl grows up in ignorance of what is 
likely to be the mightiest motive-power of her destiny ; 
excepting, indeed, what she learns by instinct, or rather 
from her giddy schoolfellows. Perhaps novels in gen- 
eral have been forbidden to her, and she has lost a great 
deal of thoughtful instruction from those good novels, 
which paint the actual drama of life under many dif- 
ferent hues and draperies, and illumine the workings of 
the heart, — those touches of nature which make the 
whole world kin, and lend us an insight into our own 
troubled, tender, immortal souls. She has merely read 
a few indifferent or bad novels, which she has not been 
enabled by a better standard to reject. In this state of 
inexperience and immaturity of character, some man of 
her acquaintance lately introduced to her, or long known 
to her in a superficial way, pays her the compliment of 
selecting her from the girlish circle in which she has 
been comparatively obscure, distinguishing her by his 
attentions, and soliciting her to stand to him in the 
nearest and dearest relation of life. Girls are mostly 
sensitive ; they are impressed by an honor ; they are 
clinging, and fond, too ; and they instinctively turn to 



204 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

a guide and ruler. And, as if all this were not quite 
enough to overbalance this girl's judgment, she is im- 
mediately hailed with a perfect chorus of acclamation, 
not only from her companions, but from her whole little 
world. Her mother, with all her relations at a greater 
distance, if the match appears unexceptionable, is filled 
with pride and gladness. The centre of this excite- 
ment — call her volunteer or victim, but call her not 
conqueror — is petted, praised, caressed, envied on 
every hand, until she must be a good and wise girl 
indeed if she be not raised on the noisy, turbulent 
wave of popularity, and floated quite off her feet. 
Poor little woman ! many a struggle and scramble and 
wound she is fated to encounter, ere she be disabused 
of her foolish self-importance, and recover the lost 
humility and contentment of what ought to have been 
the heyday of her life. 

Now all this is wrong and cruel. It is no joke.; it 
causes thousands of women to shed salt tears ; it is at 
the bottom of thousands of miserable homes. To be a 
good man's choice for his wife, is a crowning honor to 
any woman, but there the matter ends ; there is no 
further exaltation. Until we recognize other prizes for 
women than the prize of matrimony \ until we openly 
and broadly teach and preach, as the greatest satirist of 
the age has represented it to our girls, that the temple 
of matrimony without a shrine is no better than a 
sepulchre \ until we teach our girls that a self-interested 
marriage, a marriage of pride and vanity, a marriage of 
convenience, or even a marriage of flighty inclination, 
is of all shames the greatest shame to a woman, we 



Love. 205 

shall have pining faces, weary spirits, failing health and 
happiness on all sides of us. We shall have those loud, 
conflicting complaints of incompatibility of temper. 
Why do the couples not examine into that probability 
beforehand % take into consideration the three hundred 
and sixty-five breakfasts a year, to be eaten in company 
with one and the same individual, when both body and 
mind are apt to be in dishabille ? May we be merci- 
fully preserved from those ghastly violations of solemn 
ties, those ghastly falls into vice and crime, those tri- 
umphs of the evil lusts of the flesh which have some- 
times prevailed in the higher class of our country- 
women. 

There is yet another view of this old question of love 
and lovers, which the writer would wish to take up 
before dismissing the subject. There are those who 
have loved, there are those who will love, fruitlessly. 
Very tenderly would a friend approach them ; very 
reverently, very hopefully. All gentleness and honor 
to those who bear the scars of battle. They have evi- 
denced that they have hearts, and heads too, possibly ; 
they have felt, and thought, and fought their hard con- 
test ; and so that they have done it modestly and 
bravely, uprightly, and stanchly to the end, it will not 
mar them, — never. Better, a thousand times, to have 
loved in vain, to have been jilted, pitied, derided even, 
than to have made a comfortable, worldly marriage. 
Let our girls neither scorn nor shrink from such results. 
Let them be sure that their Maker did not give them 
their fervent spirits, their kindly affections, to be blasted 
by the breath of one disappointment ; to be in the 



206 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

power of any man, however selfish, guileful, or unfor- 
tunate, to crush and annihilate. They will bloom again, 
these old fields, and the herbs of grace on them will 
but shed more fragrance for being bruised. Noble 
ranks, in the sight of the noble, are those armies of 
single women who have made no covenant with man, 
but whose oath of allegiance is sworn directly to the 
Lord. We are, in general, losing something of our 
strong, outward, artificial tendency ; and it is only 
the very coarse, now-a-days, who " roast old women," 
tease the weak, and despise old maids. Rest assured, 
everything may be borne, with God's help, by the good 
and true. Mortification and anguish, that wistful yearn- 
ing which, like hope deferred, maketh the heart sick, 
have but their day. Endure them, lift them up, and 
carry them as a daily burden, permitted by the Master, 
though, perhaps, consummated by the fellow-servant ; 
have faith in heaven and earth j forget yourself in 
others ; pray, work, enjoy, — it is wonderful how many 
enjoyments are left to the smitten ; and the new dawn 
will rise sooner or later, the calmer, broader dawn, 
which will only set on the cloudless morning of eter- 
nity. 

Is there any love-sick ? Don't deny it or stifle it or 
trample upon it, to your own conscience. Keep it a 
dead secret from all others, if you will. That " the 
heart knoweth its own bitterness," that " a stranger 
intermeddleth not with its sorrows," are sacred, whole 
some sentiments ; but don't stretch the concealment to 
yourself, and grow sour and hard under the perpetual 
silence. Look the truth steadily in the face, and then 



Love. 207 

say to yourself, Thus and thus must love be purified of 
its passion, and robbed of its sting. Be up and doing 
in this world, be in the spirit, remembering another 
world. For a plain, practical prescription, be busy 
from morning till night. In as much as is possible, lay 
your own individuality down, and take up the claims 
and wants of others ; identify yourself with them, look 
at life through their thousand gleaming eyes, and their 
thousand craving hearts. Never fear ; peace will come, 
joy will come ; peace which cannot pass away, joy 
whose fruition is bliss. 



A TALE OF TRUE LOVE. 

BLACKNESS was a prim little seaport, in spite of 
its salt flavor ; more of a dwelling-place for re- 
tired men of business, and widows with settlements and 
annuities, than a place of trade. It was a monotonous 
little town, though its ships went and came ; and there 
was a marked equality throughout the better class of its 
inhabitants. 

A widow's daughter, and a widower's son, — a young 
man of five-and-twenty, and a girl of twenty, — both 
resident at Blackness, both well enough born, well 
enough inclined, well enough educated, well enough 
looking ! Surely there could be no great disparity here, 
and yet the sand and the surf in Blackness Bay, which 
were destined to be constantly together without ever 
amalgamating, were not more distinct from each other 
than Marjory Bruce and Jack Fergusson. Their com- 



208 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

ing together at all was one of the curious and interest- 
ing puzzles of social life. 

Marjory Bruce, though she bore the name of a king's 
daughter, was a humble-minded girl \ a good deal put 
upon and kept down in the world's warfare. Her 
father was the only Bruce of Blackness who had gone 
abroad and not brought home money ; and the other 
Bruces and their families, who had been more energetic 
or more acquisitive, rode in a rough-shod fashion over 
Marjory and her mother. Mrs. Bruce, seeing her hus- 
band's kindred treat it as a grievous flaw on his part, 
that he had not gathered gain, grew to resent it on her 
own account \ and when the offender died, by some 
singular but perfectly practicable course of reasoning, 
she transferred the offence to his daughter, and always 
talked to her of what she might have been, and what 
she might have done, as if Marjory were at the bottom 
of the defalcation. She was a weak woman, Mrs. 
Bruce ; weak in body and mind ; though I do not 
mean that she was incapable of knowing right from 
wrong, or of controlling her own actions. She invaria- 
bly took the tone from those around her; she con- 
stantly required a grievance to nurse ; and, certes, what 
with her own delicate health, her narrow income, and 
Marjory's comparatively defenceless and unprovided- 
for condition, — all contrasted with the robust health, 
full purses, and many brothers and sisters of the 
other Bruce houses, she was well furnished in this 
respect. 

Marjory grew up in a poor soil; she went abroad with 
a blight upon her, from her earliest years. She had 



Love. 209 

never gone to church or into company, without pre- 
viously listening to a lamentation on her plain bonnet, 
or her shabby shawl, or her washed muslin, or her 
cleaned gloves. She might have grown out of all this 
a buxom and hilarious woman ; for an injudicious regi- 
men has sometimes the effect of sending the perverse 
plants of human nature shooting and spinning in a 
direction quite contrary from what might have been 
expected. But, as it happened, she grew up sensible, 
rather than light-hearted. She was indifferent to the 
forms on which her mother put so much weight, but 
there was a racy strength and sweetness far down at the 
core of her heart, budding out of the sap, which had 
been so forced back and compressed within its boun- 
daries of bark. She was not pretty (here another Jere- 
miad from her mother !), and she was not ugly. She 
was strong rather than graceful ; she had a quantity of. 
fine black hair, but though it was fine and well-dressed, 
its weight and mass were detrimental to a heavy head 
and face ; and she had thick, straight eyebrows. Still 
her mouth was one of those beautiful, clear, delicate, 
yet full mouths, which redeem much plainer faces than 
hers. She was not accomplished, and she was a little 
given to silence. But, for all that, I am proud to say, 
for the credit of Blackness, that she was admired and 
liked in her native town. I believe it was because she 
was thoroughly unaffected, because she was original ; 
that when she did speak, her words were worth listen- 
ing to, and because she could be depended upon both 
by friends and foes. There was not a more sincere 
girl in existence than Marjory Bruce, and that in spite 

N 



210 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

of a subservient position, and many temptations to 
irony, if not to flattery. 

But, notwithstanding the fact that Marjory Bruce 
had her genuine admirers, there was a great sensation 
at Blackness, when it spread abroad that Jack Fergus- 
son had engaged himself to her. Marjory would never 
have made it public. She would have kept all the joy 
and pride to herself, but Jack could keep nothing to 
himself ; and really, poor fellow ! he was thoroughly 
proud and joyful over his conquest, in a way that might 
have done one good in this nonchalant, self-conceited 
age. It did bring water into Marjory Bruce's eyes an 
infinite number of times. " I cannot think what Jack 
sees in me to cry out about ; a very humdrum, plain 
girl : nobody will envy his obtaining his choice ; but 
I should like to see who will persuade Jack of that 
fact." 

I should like to have seen who would have persuaded 
Jack that Marjory Bruce was not the fairest, brightest, 
noblest, best women that ever lived ; that she was any- 
thing short of angelic. He was the manliest, ablest, 
handsomest, and, alas ! most facile fellow on this great 
globe. His father was a jovial, selfish man, holding a 
town's office \ who was safe of his comforts and amuse- 
ments during his life, and left his boy to shift for him- 
self. He liked him, I believe, but he never took any 
trouble about him. Jack hung as he grew anyhow, 
adored by the servants, welcome to every house in the 
town, learning what he liked as a boy at the grammar- 
school, and leaving unlearned what he disliked, accord- 
ing to instinct or fancy. He saw no example of self- 



Love. 211 

denial, and, absolutely, he had no idea of it. That was 
the seed of corruption in a character otherwise one of 
the purest, truest, gentlest, most guileless that ever 
existed. He was clever too, acute, ingenious, but 
sadly desultory and volatile ; yet I no more wonder 
that Marjory Bruce loved the ground he trod upon, 
stuck to him through thick and thin, bore with his 
failures, and clung to him, than that she loved the sun 
above her head, and the flowers and grass beneath her 
feet. 

Mrs. Bruce did not cherish brilliant expectations of 
the connection which Marjory was to form with Jack 
Fergusson. At certain times, she allowed that Jack 
was gentlemanlike, popular, warm-hearted ; but, then, 
he had no inheritance, he could not of necessity suc- 
ceed to his father's office, though he was one of his 
clerks, and, I am afraid, the idlest and flightiest. If he 
had been like his father, now ! Actually, there is no 
accounting for tastes. Mrs. Bruce preferred the portly, 
wine-consuming father, who never did anything dis- 
agreeable, never even contemplated it, to the fine, 
brave, generous son. It was only an engagement ; still, 
it prevented Marjory from drawing something like a 
prize in the lottery of life, though Mrs. Bruce had not 
before contemplated her making a fortune by marriage 
or otherwise. She had been accustomed rather to con- 
template her as a pinched old maid, with little to do, 
and few to care for her. So Mrs. Bruce grumbled 
over Jack Fergusson's broad shoulders and his beard ; 
grumbled over him, as he helped Marjory to find her 
ferns, and train her dog, Ranger; as he brought her 



2 1 2 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

home from her aunt's carpet-dances \ as he was even 
induced to sit and read to her sober, earnest books, on 
sober, earnest occasions (and you have no idea how 
difficult it was to arrest Jack, and fix him on a seat, 
and constrain him to let his thoughts follow the guid- 
ance of another, however lofty and lovable the teach- 
er), and as he hung about Marjory, like the miser about 
his treasure. 

Mrs. Bruce, Marjory's mother, talked about Marjory's 
engagement to the other Mrs. Bruces, — the wealthy, 
dashing Mrs. Bruces, whose daughters had contracted 
no engagements, — until she saw it a very doubtful 
good for Marjory. She saw it as a long, dangling en- 
gagement, noised abroad by the inconsiderateness and 
indelicacy of Jack Fergusson, compromising Marjory, 
doing her a world of harm \ in fact, one of those flow- 
ery snares, which, in the end, hang like a noose about 
one's neck, if they do not strangle the breath out of one's 
body. And, as water frets stone, Mrs. Bruce began to 
drop, drop peevish murmurs, and evil prognostications 
against Marjory's engagement and Marjory's future ; 
against Jack Fergusson, Jack's jests, Jack's restlessness, 
Jack's love of company, Jack's imprudence and extrava- 
gance, Jack's whole man, Jack's whole prospects. 

Marjory had to fight against two anomalies. Mrs. 
Bruce, who must needs be the echo of somebody, was 
the echo of the selfish, hard sisters-in-law, who lorded 
it over her, and bespattered her with their patronage, 
and not the echo of her own daughter, and only child, 
whom she loved as well as she could love any human 
being. 



Love. 213 

" Only listen to me, mother ; only hear what I Ve got 
to say," Marjory would implore in vain. In this case, 
"familiarity bred contempt," the consanguinity of the 
speaker, the power her mother possessed over her, the 
affection she entertained for her, were so many barriers 
against her. They barred the doors of so much reason 
as Mrs* Bruce possessed against Marjory's and Jack 
Fergusson's opinions and arguments, and opened them 
wide to the slights and sneers, the innuendoes and 
hinted commiseration of her sisters-in-law, and their 
satellites. And, be it said, the ill-natured gossips of 
Blackness proceeded to hang Jack Fergusson at a very 
early date in his history. 

The other hopeless quicksand in which poor Mar- 
jory floundered, was' the notable circumstance that 
some of Jack Fergusson's virtues did the work of vices 
against him, degraded him in the world's estimation 
(liked and loved as he was), and exposed him to dan- 
ger, rendered doubly, trebly precarious by very unstable 
fortunes. It was honorable in Jack that he never 
courted a man for his wealth and rank ; that he had a 
decided inclination to stoop to those who were unjustly 
slighted and despised. And, I dare say, it was because 
he had a conviction that Marjory Bruce was not so 
exalted as she should have been, — that fools preferred 
more skin-deep qualities, or more mercenary lures, 
that he rushed to adore her. Above all, he was hot 
and passionate for the wronged, and started to their 
rescue with a headlong gallantry becoming a squire 
who had his spurs to win. Now all this might bring 
him nearer the kingdom of heaven, but it by no means 



214 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

promoted his interests on earth, seeing that he was not 
a pillar of discretion on his own foundation ; that he 
was rash, confident, careless. And Marjory heard 
continually of his rubs with society, and had con- 
tinually to condemn the world for base injustice on 
his account. 

Of course, Jack Fergusson did not get on in his fa- 
ther's office, — the easiest place for his father to put 
him. He had no great scope for his talents, nor for 
his occasional fits of industry \ and he did not improve 
what scope he had. He did not advance as attorney, 
agent, banker, for whatever branch of calling he meant 
to adhere to. At the end of two years, he was no far- 
ther forward in the world ; he was farther back. He 
had lost a portion of the confidence of embryo clients, 
embryo borrowers and lenders ; he was not a hair's- 
breadth nearer keeping a house and maintaining a wife, 
to which he had been guilty of the ambition — pre- 
sumption, Mrs. Bruce called it now — of aspiring. The 
Mrs. Bruces (aunts) shook their heads more ominously 
and emphatically, and whispered, Should not something 
be done % would not husband number one or husband 
number two interfere, apply the goad to Jack Fergus- 
son's laziness and levity, or free Marjory of the engage- 
ment by a quarrel and a rupture % 

Marjory and Jack Fergusson laughed aloud at that 
conclusion in the twilight parlor ; laughed in utter de- 
rision, with their hearts w T arm and fond, with their 
bodies vigorous and blooming, w r ith Jack's last kiss on 
Marjory's yielding lips, and his last look in her eyes, 
which had learnt to beam back the flash of his own, as 



Love. 215 

the sea reflects the sun. But, for all the laughter, the 
relatives' and acquaintances' friendly suggestions in- 
fused sundry drops of gall into Jack's spirit. What % 
wrench him asunder from Marjory ; ruin him ; blast his 
heart and life because he did not arrive fast enough at 
promotion ! The harpies, the screws, the horrible cur- 
mudgeons ! 

From that moment, Marjory detected a subtle but 
potent element of hostility, kept in the background not 
to vex her, but sufficiently active in all Jack's dealings 
with her kindred. Jack began to look upon himself 
as an ill-used man, to feel hated, to grow reckless, 
desperate. 

It was Marjory that proposed to Jack Fergusson.to 
go abroad, to cross the seas, brave rough passages, 
foreign railways, strange climates, unfriendly faces. Af- 
ter much sad reflection and many prayers, it seemed 
to her that it would be best for him, and she brought 
herself to recommend it. She did not mind herself, of 
course. She would follow. It would be easy for her 
when he was there ; easy, when Marjory suffered from 
one of those strange, constitutional weaknesses which 
beset many wise men and women % She had a positive 
horror of the sea, rolling and buffeting its surges round 
her temporary home. She could not sail a few hours 
without uneasiness and apprehension, and yet she could 
propose to traverse an ocean, single-handed, for a 
glance of Jack Fergusson's eye, at a beckon of Jack 
Fergusson's hand. There are women who can be so 
mad. 

Jack was startled by the proposal, but he liked it, 



2 1 6 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

and a very little time served to reconcile him to it as 
feasible and promising. It seems to me that his will- 
ingness was an instance of his selfishness, — or rather 
his self-indulgence, even though Marjory was silly 
enough to instigate him. He could have put his 
shoulders to the wheel and managed the business at 
home, if he had spent his whole strength upon it, and 
relinquished other delectation than what was included 
in doing his own particular work, and looking forward 
to his own particular wages ; if he had condescended 
to small beginnings, and braced himself, like a Titan 
or Trojan, to unflinching efforts. But, you perceive, it 
was a much simpler and more agreeable affair, for a 
man with his education and tendencies, to set off in 
pursuit of adventures, on a wild-goose chase for a 
ready-made fortune. 

There was Jack's destination to settle, and his outfit 
to prepare, and the parting to be gone through ; events 
from which his mind was to be diverted by change of 
scene and active progress, while Marjory was to brood 
over them during the tedious course of the draughts 
and plasters of her mother's spring influenza. 

Mrs. Bruce was not propitiated by Jack's withdrawal 
from the scene ; she did not see in it a chance of an 
escape for Marjory from an unlucky contract, or she 
resented that Marjory should have that chance. On 
the whole, she was more bent on seeing in it the fact 
of Marjory's banishment to the Colonies, to mourn 
over her daughter as an innocent convict, and herself 
as a deserted mother. She softened a little at the last 
moment, and allowed Jack to kiss her, and cried after 



Love. 217 

his departing footsteps. Then her grief took the form 
of prognosticating storms and shipwrecks, revelling in 
yellow fevers and choleras, and feeling quite certain 
that she should never see him again. She thought 
Marjory was as good as a widow, and she knew, to 
her cost, what it was to be a widow in this unfeeling 
world. 

If Marjory had been a little German girl, now, she 
might have openly superintended Jack's outfit, trotted 
with him to the shops where he made his purchases^ 
manufactured a large portion of his wearing apparel 
with her own busy fingers, accompanied him in his fare- 
well visits, and never halted till she had seen him on 
board ship. The customs of the country were against 
her, but I believe she thought night and day for his 
benefit ; she hunted up the woman who was to be his 
seamstress, and intrusted him with the card of her 
name and terms, — envying every stitch the woman 
sewed for him. She read all the books of informa- 
tion at which he merely glanced, and, in the end, she 
knew a vast deal more about his destination and de- 
signs than he did, and she besieged Heaven for bless- 
ings on his head. When the parting came, she kept 
him up. You often hear it said of some poor, slight 
woman, in her day of distress, that she cannot show 
her feelings, she must stifle them, in order to support 
some lump of a fellow, who would break down other- 
wise. Jack Fergusson was manly; he would put a 
brave, cheery face on matters ; but when he took fare- 
well (" good-by," he called it, for he would not for the 
world have termed it taking farewell), his impetuous 



2 1 8 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

heart was ready to break, and she knew that, and 
smiled upon him to the last. 

Jack was gone, and Marjory was alone, dreadfully 
alone, after these last two years, at Blackness. She 
saw other girls light-hearted, comfortable, confidential, 
expecting their brothers for a week at midsummer, or 
when the universities and courts were broken up, or at 
Christmas. She heard all the blithe anticipations, the 
merry appointments, the laughing retrospects. Young 
Mrs. Alison, who had met and married a Blackness 
man since she was engaged to Jack Fergusson, made 
her a party to her dismal condition when Mr. Alison 
went yachting for a fortnight, or on a tour in the High- 
lands, or to London on business. 

At all hours Marjory was stealing out, and walking 
forlorn through the plantations, and by the stream, — 
the old haunts \ or sitting, heart-sick, on the shore, 
watching the sea-gulls vanishing beyond the horizon, 
and thinking of her Jack, wandering at the ends of the 
earth. The old Scotch songs teem with the eeriness 
of such plights \ hundreds of Nellies " languish " in 
their forgotten verses, — 

" Here awa, there awa, wandering Willie, 
Here awa, there awa, haud awa hame." 

" Nae mair at Logan Kirk will he, 
Atween the preachings, meet wi' me." 

"Now I gang lanesome and dowie and wae." 
Sing these songs to yourselves in the pensive gloaming, 
and you girls will understand the state far better than I 
can explain it to you. You have all heard of home- 
sickness ; it is hard to bear ; so hard that there is a 



Love. 219 

pathetic, deep-meaning proverb, "Blessed are the home- 
sick, for they shall see home " ; but homesickness is as 
nothing compared to the tugging at the heart-strings, 
when one who is the desire of the eyes is removed out 
of sight and hearing; when one who is knit to the 
heart as a second being is carried away to the extremi- 
ties of land and sea, and a blank and a chasm left 
behind. Such a watch, such a waiting is very trying to 
any tender woman ; enough, if she has no other refuge, 
to wear the flesh from her bones, drain the blood from 
her heart, and draw the light from her eyes. But when 
the object of devotion is a fine, thoughtless fellow like 
Jack Fergusson, who may be running his head against 
a post, or rushing slap-dash into a whirlpool any day ; 
when the woman has advised, or even abetted his 
exile, — O, pity that woman, and take care to say to 
her, as Mrs. Bruce said to Marjory, "Child, if you 
don't rouse yourself, and pluck up a spirit, and go out 
amongst other young people, you '11 fall into a decline. 
I wish you had never seen that lad Fergusson's face ; 
but if he ever comes back again, he '11 find you wrinkled 
and gray-headed before your time. And how will Jack 
Fergusson pay you back for your foolish cares, Mar- 
jory? Girl, if he thinks you fallen off, and finds you 
no longer to his mind (and really, Marjory Bruce, you 
look an old woman already for your years), he won't 
have a gift of you and your love ! " 

This is a climax for which girls are eager to barter 
their first joyousness. It must have its redeeming fea- 
tures too, I suppose, just as you hear the oppressed 
mother of a troublesome family declare honestly that 



220 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

she would not be without her plagues, and dwell in 
peace and at leisure, for all the gold, gear, tranquillity, 
and amusement of her childless neighbor multiplied a 
thousand-fold. So Marjory would not have gone back 
two or three years in her existence and lived again 
without a constant source of anxiety and yearning for 
that broad-shouldered wanderer, no, not for any con- 
ceivable reward. 

We all know the proverb about the rolling stone, and 
have had frequent opportunities of testing it. A mer- 
curial, thin-skinned fellow like Jack Fergusson, who 
does no good at home, does not often do much good 
(in a money-making sense) abroad. Jack, tired of the 
vain attempt, and longing to see Marjory again, re- 
turned home considerably poorer than he went away. 

Poor Jack ! his ship was spoken at Blackness on the 
very eve of the marriage of one of Marjory's cousins. 
Such a satisfactory marriage ; so excellent, so unexcep- 
tionable in every way ! A great merchant's son, hold- 
ing a commission in the army, visiting some of the 
best people in the town, saw Louisa at a picnic, was 
struck with her figure, and enchanted with her singing, 
got an introduction, and made up the match in no time. 
Louisa was getting such ornaments, such dresses ; for 
the regiment was particularly gay, and the colonel's 
wife particularly fond of young matrons under her wing ; 
and Louisa was to set up with a man-servant and a 
barouche at once. Louisa's mother had reason to be 
pleased and happy. Mrs. Bruce wondered, in a cutting 
way, that some people could be so shameless as to 
choose that time of all others to reappear in the town, 



Love. 221 

and inflict fresh annoyance and heavier mortification. 
Marjory was wearied of representing that Jack Fer- 
gusson was not a prophet to predict Loo's marriage; 
that he could not help his ship's coming in, and that 
he was not to linger on in the great seaport ; that 
in a Christian country a man need not be banned 
outright, because he has not hit on the philosopher's 
stone. 

I can fancy Marjory's distraction of spirit at this 
time ; her eagerness to welcome Jack Fergusson home 
again ; her quick fear lest he should be keenly pained 
at the result of his travels; the necessity she was under 
of obeying, and deferring to her mother ; the vexation 
inflicted by her enforced attendance at Louisa's mar- 
riage, with the invidious contrasts and condolences it 
provoked. If she had dared, instead of knotting favors 
and fastening bouquets, she would far rather have been 
making thoughtful provision for the serious gaps in 
Jack's spent wardrobe, laying up stores of neck-ties 
and collars, and slippers for his weary feet, that the 
poor fellow might appear respectable among his equals. 

I can see poor Jack's return at the fall of the night, 
in the fall of the year. No trumpets sounding before 
him ; no train gone out to meet him. It was not 
worth while announcing the event to his father, for 
the purple-faced old gentleman would not have refused 
an invitation, or risked his mutton being overdone in 
consequence of it. He had written a hurried note to 
Marjory, but of course she could not blazon the news ; 
so he turned in to his native town from the railway- 
station when the lamps were lighting, and when he was 



222 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

free to walk the streets as a stranger. He came like the 
German Wandelbursch, brown and dusty, travel-stained 
and aching with fatigue ; and he trudged along just as 
that other pilgrim did, peering wistfully into the un- 
conscious faces, feeling as if he had been much longer 
away, sensible that the town looked narrow and small 
and finical, yet that it thrilled him to a far greater de- 
gree than any of the rousing commercial cities, — where 
men struck the iron when it was hot, and forged pedes- 
tals and statues to themselves and mammon before they 
drew breath. Jack could encounter no little mother, 
like the Wandelbursch's, returning from the church, 
recognizing him at a glance, and falling with a cry of 
gladness on his breast, never pausing to look whether 
his staff bore a knapsack, or whether it presented a 
bare pole ; but he was more fortunate in his sweet- 
heart. Jack, in his straightforward, heedless way, was 
plodding right to the Bruces' cottage, when at the cor- 
ner of the garden-wall, beneath the bour-tree bush, 
hanging in black winter berries, a woman started for- 
ward, clasped two hands tight upon his arm, and laid 
her head on his shoulder. 

" I have only brought back myself, Marjory, do you 
know % " Jack asked, with a long-drawn sigh some time 
afterwards, as if his letters had not told her the plain 
truth, upon this point, as well as on all others. 

" You could not have brought back anything better ; 
you could not have brought back anything I would have 
liked a thousandth part so well. O, I am so glad, Jack, 
so thankful to God to have you again ! " Then she 
asked him if he was tired, for they would be more un- 



Love. 223 

disturbed to take a turn up and down for a little while ; 
it was only foggy, and she was glad of the air ; she had 
not been out that day before. Some of the guests who 
were to be present at her Cousin Louisa's marriage to- 
morrow were staying at their house. Jack would be 
very welcome among them, but she would not have him 
to herself. So the two walked backwards and for- 
wards in the lamplight and the drizzle, under Jack's 
riddled umbrella, for a blest half-hour ; such a half-hour 
as brides, in brilliant drawing-rooms, behind rosy cur- 
tains, with approving friends burning incense before 
them, might well covet. 

During the next few months, if Marjory Bruce had 
not been invested with that strength and sweetness 
which was at her heart's core, and with the principle 
which ruled them, she would have been torn asunder 
by rival affections, she would have committed one of 
two great errors. She would either have given up Jack, 
and made peace with her mother, or else she would 
have gone off to Jack, and rent one of the most sacred 
relations of life, besides endowing him with a partner 
whose defiance of old ties was not very likely to qualify 
her to preserve and glorify new ties. She did neither, 
but like most enduring, upright individuals, she pro- 
cured a standing-ground, and bore down opposition. 
Her mother never forbade Jack the house ; her rela- 
tions never interfered actively to compel her to throw 
him over. 

Jack tried another office at Blackness ; but, O that 
want of application, what a fatal defect it is in a grown 
man ! and how hard it is to supplement its absence by 



224 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

late resolution, late adherence to plodding, painstaking, 
dry routine ! Jack could not do it yet, with all the 
inducement of Marjory Bruce' s love and faithfulness ; 
for if a man will not play the man for God's sake and 
his own, he will scarcely do it for a woman, though she 
be the apple of his eye. God had been good to him, 
and given him manly, tender impulses ; but he had 
never concentrated and consecrated them by a new life 
of self-denial and self-devotion \ and such a lesson is 
rarely learned in a day, even when a man has said 
his prayers, read his Bible, and gone to church with a 
single-hearted purpose all the rest of his life. Without 
this backbone to his virtue, Jack could not go erect 
either in the sphere which he now occupied, or in any 
other. Indeed, so far as present prosperity was con- 
cerned, he would have fared much better, as Mrs. 
Bruce would have preferred him, without his sense of 
justice and his geniality. Had he been selfish, grasp- 
ing, cringing, he would doubtless have more speedily 
overcome his volatility, forced his way in the world, 
and offered Marjory a comfortable, perhaps a magnifi- 
cent home. But if I know Marjory Bruce aright, she 
would have spurned it at that price. 

I understand Jack again succumbed to disturbing in- 
fluences in his career, hoisted the rover's perpetually- 
shifting flag, and steered on a brand-new tack, from a 
quarrel with his master on the right of thinking for him- 
self, and from certain sweeping censures which he saw 
meet to pass on the practices of the firm. " Nothing to 
blush for, nothing to degrade him for a second in the 
opinion of any one whose sentence was worth listening 



Love. 225 

to ; quite the reverse," Marjory argued, but she could 
not hold the argument long. 

A man cannot touch pitch and not be denied ; at least 
not a poor fellow like Jack Fergusson, giving way for- 
ever to impulse, unsteady, unguarded, at open war with 
a multitude of his fellow-creatures, — not the ill-natured 
gossips alone, but respectable men and women, not- 
withstanding some harsh prejudices. Such a one as 
Jack Fergusson had need of a cohort of angels to de- 
fend him from a greater fall ; and he did wander into 
forbidden, miry by-ways, never with a will, never with- 
out repulsion, loathing, and remorse. But how long 
would these sensations serve him ] until the self-respect, 
he had been unwittingly sapping all his life, was clean 
gone, until his conscience was seared and hardened. 

Ah me ! we will not speak of Marjory Bruce now. 
Compelled to drink this bitterest cup of a woman's 
wretchedness, — the unworthiness of the man she has 
called her head. O false, frail god ! how you have 
humbled her, together with yourself, and caused her to 
bite the very dust, even because she loved you as her 
own soul ! 

Marjory had reached what is a wild and maddening 
bewilderment to a woman, an enigma which people 
read in very different ways. I have heard good men 
maintain, that no woman who has once pledged her- 
self to a man, and accepted his pledge in return, ought 
to give him up on this side time ; unless, I suppose, he 
constrain her to be his partner in sin. I have heard 
good women protest that a woman should relinquish a 
man, however dear, on the bridal-eve itself, if she has 
10* o 



226 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

reason to suspect the purity of his faith and works ; 
that she should fly, like Lot from Sodom, for her own 
life, and leave him to perish in the burning city, if he is 
so infatuated and accursed. I suspect the confusion 
rights itself. If a man be bad, he outrages the woman 
to whom he is bound, he casts her off in spirit or in 
deed ; he does not really want her honest, penetrating, 
exacting affection. But Marjory was persuaded that 
the fitful letters she now received from Jack only 
breathed burning love and sorrow ; that he was a man 
beside himself, tempted and beset by a devil whom he 
would yet conquer and trample under his feet. Do not 
be angry with her, poor girl, for her credulity, because 
without it I do think that strange thing might have 
happened to her, — her heart would have broken. 

Old Mr. Fergusson died surrounded by luxuries, and 
was found to have left no provision for Jack. What 
provision did a stout son with brains and hands want ] 
He was a deal better without one. But a man who 
has brought up his family with extravagant habits, and 
has never afforded them a single instance of abstinence 
from pride, vanity, and sensual enjoyment, or of conse- 
cration of strength, health, and faculties of body and 
mind, had better, in common charity, heap up some 
wealth for his descendants, though it should appear an 
excess of indulgence. Jack removed to London, that 
great net which draws in so many provincial fish, and 
keeps the good and honors them, but throws the bad 
away, — whither, who can tell] 

Then Mrs. Bruce was seized with the last of her 
many sicknesses. Poor woman ! she was more patient 



Love. 227 

than she had ever shown herself formerly, lying there, 
shut out from the glare and glamour of life ; it was as if 
a breath from a region healthier and more generous 
had blown across her spirit. She would say, as she 
had never had the self-forgetfulness, or taken the time 
and thought to do in the old days, to Marjory, — 

"You have had a deal to bear, my dear; I hope 
you'll be happy yet." 

Precious words to Marjory. 

Jack Fergusson came down to the funeral; and Mrs. 
Bruce had no more decent^ disinterested mourner there, 
though the dead woman had been no friend to him. 
In the afternoon, Jack went by himself to see Marjory 
in her empty house ; beginning that most forbidding 
aspect of life to a kindly woman's nature, — a single 
woman's existence. 

Though Jack was by no means famous for tact, he 
had a consciousness that he could not continue to go 
about Marjory Bruce as he had done ; that their con- 
nection must come to an end some time. Subdued as 
Jack was by the occasion of his visit, by his sensibility 
to Marjory's grief, and by his painful reflections that he 
might have been a true son, a veritable prop and stay 
to " the woman who was a widow " ; whom he had 
helped to lay in the grave, and whose load he had not 
lightened by one hair's-breadth, if he had not piled 
additional fagots on her poor, shrunk, bent back, — this 
idea pressed upon him. Jack felt as if truly he were 
not worthy, as if he ought to tell Marjory so, as if he 
ought to free her from her long obligation to him, and 
bid her have nothing more to do with him and his ill 



228 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

luck. Barbarous as the blow might be at such a season, 
better have done with it than live on with it impending 
over their heads. But when Marjory came down to 
him from the room where she had been sitting with her 
aunts, in her black dress, with her dear beautiful lips 
pressed together to prevent their quivering \ when she 
looked at him with such fixed eyes, when he sat alone 
with her at her hearth, Jack could not dissolve the 
last tie that bound him to paradise. A great agony of 
prayer came over him, and he rose and stood before 
her, and besought her, — 

"Will you try me once again, Marjory?" 

And she got up and walked to his side, and put her 
arm round his neck. 

" Until seventy times seven, Jack." 

I believe a great awe came over Jack at the extent 
of that woman's faith. I believe that it sobered him, 
and steeled his light, lovable nature more than anything 
else he had encountered in the whole course of his life. 
I believe it gave him his first vivid conception of a 
matchless forbearance, an infinite love. 

Jack was able to marry Marjory before her black 
dress was laid aside. She only put it off on the pale 
February day when she became his wife, to resume it 
the next working-day. That was one of the grave con- 
comitants of a grave wedding, at a time when there 
were no flowers save Christmas roses, heavy with mois- 
ture and stained with earth soils, and little winking 
hepaticas. Women are superstitious to the last ; they 
are averse to such omens ; they will have the sun shine, 
the flowers bloom, the bells peal; and smiling, fond 



Love. 229 

friends supporting them, caressing them, and wishing 
them joy. No true woman is indifferent to such ac- 
cessories; she regrets their absence; she misses what 
should have been of life's gala. Yet none can dig up 
wells among the sulphur-pits like women ; none can 
draw honey in such streams from the flinty rocks. A 
glimpse of the eager thankfulness which had replaced 
Jack Fergusson's old riotous joyfulness made his mis- 
tress's faint heart glad. And, ah ! the bright star that 
rises for the righteous, the deep gladness that dawns on 
the true-hearted. 

I wish I could say, from my soul, that Jack Fergus- 
son and his household prospered amazingly from that 
moment. But I can say that he was like a man awak- 
ened from a sleep, and recovered from a fever; and 
though he might still feel in a measure helpless, weak, 
liable to relapses, he mended fairly from that day. He 
and Marjory worked together, shared their struggles 
honestly, climbed slowly and staggeringly, but surely, 
to some degree of independence ; and surprised the 
Blackness world into admitting that Marjory Bruce's 
marriage had turned out a very tolerable marriage after 
all. 

" But it was not luck, Marjory," Jack said, when they 
talked over their troubles on rare occasions ; for sound 
men and women are not fond of reverting to sorrows, 
far less to sins, unless to gather jealously the precious 
drops of balm they have shed. " You ventured gal- 
lantly, all in God's grace, for the love of me." 




IX. 



GODLINESS. 




MONG gifts I reckon a long list : youth, 
intellect, beauty, favor, ambition, pleasure, 
friendship, love. Some of these may be ours 
for a time ; some may be, in a great meas- 
ure, from first to last denied to us ; all may be taken 
from us. We may have them, or we may want them, 
and, terrible as the blank appears, we may certainly, in 
the light of another world, do without them. Of studies 
I reckon only two. These we must run after, if we are 
faithful, to our dying day ; these, without reservation, 
are our actual possessions, ours to foster, develop, ma- 
ture here ; ours to practise and enjoy hereafter. 

The first is Godliness. Without some form of Godli- 
ness, there can be no sure virtue, no firm principle. 
All excellence, not built on the foundation of the con- 
ception of God, the fear of God, the love of God, is the 
foolish man's house on the sand, — " the wind blew, 
and the storm rose, and great was the fall of it." 
Even irreligious men and women have a dim, restless, 
inconsistent perception of this fact. A woman without 



Godliness. 231 

God in the world is an awfully sad and strange spec- 
tacle. By woman came sin and death into the world ; 
the seed of the woman bruised the serpent's head; 
the Lord was born of a woman ; women followed his 
footsteps ; women ministered unto him ; women were 
last at the cross and first at the sepulchre. And of the 
Master's exceeding tenderness for women we have a 
proof in his generous, mindful, touching speech, even, 
on the Dolorous way, fainting under his own mighty 
sorrows and humiliations, — " Daughters of Jerusalem, 
weep not for me, but rather weep for yourselves." A 
woman's heart, unsoftened by that divine love, un- 
melted by that incomparable sacrifi.ce, — we repeat it, 
an unbelieving, reckless, crafty, vain, light woman is an 
awfully sad and strange spectacle. 

But just because the livelier feelings and softer tem- 
pers of women render them usually more open to im- 
pressions, there is the more need that these impressions 
should not prove flighty, fickle, spurious, or morbid. 
To women particularly applies that verse of the parable 
of the sower which represents the seed sown and ger- 
minated, and sprung fresh and fair; too quick and 
ready of promise, as it were, without depth of earth, 
and so when the sun shines, when persecution or tribu- 
lation comes, it withers away. Women are liable to be 
made up of impulses ; they require ballast ; even those 
of them who have comparatively strong, deep natures 
require discipline, constant discipline, to break and 
train the rebellious womanly nature. 

Now, do not mistake me. Godliness is a divine 
grace. No man can come unto God, except the Spirit 



232 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

of God draw him ; it is a spiritual effort ; they who 
worship God " must worship him in spirit and in 
truth"; but for all that, godliness is a study carried 
on by human perseverance and action, and the use of 
material means. Though it is our hearts which we lift 
to God in prayer, yet we also do him the homage of 
the body ; and while we are in the body, with this mys- 
terious double nature of ours, if we deliberately and 
wilfully lay aside the outward homage, I would dread 
the non-continuance of the inward reverence. We 
speak to our Father in heaven in articulate sounds, 
because these are now the expressions of our living 
souls. So our godliness must have not only a creed 
and a ritual, but a regular acknowledgment in our day. 
Far be it from me to wish to fetter any free spirit, to 
dictate a channel of grace, to constrain to a course of 
duty ; but writing to young girls, I would ask them affec- 
tionately to keep in mind the good, lowly, wise truth, — 

"Little things on little wings 
Bear little souls to heaven." 

The act of eating and drinking seems to us a very 
small, irrelevant, commonplace, contemptible business, 
and we are often guilty of presumptuously slighting the 
process ; but it is a serious one, nevertheless, for it is 
the source which preserves, or rather restores, the flesh 
and blood and bones of this mortal framework, in which 
it has pleased our Creator to place for a season our 
immortal soul, and which it is certainly not his will 
that we should destroy before its time. So our godli- 
ness must be fed at stated intervals; it must be refreshed 



Godliness. 233 

and replaced by fresh aliment ; and although we do not 
see here the connection of cause and effect, — though 
the first may often, to our grief, be distasteful to us, as 
our natural food in ailing states of the body, — we 
must humbly and perseveringly con our day's lessons, 
and strive to win from them their germ of pure vitality. 
I love the word Lesson, which the Episcopal Church 
gives to the morning and evening readings of its people. 
I have read the advices of good men on many kinds 
of daily spiritual diet, and have been honestly struck, 
again and again, sometimes with their impracticability, 
sometimes with their austerity, sometimes with their 
spasmodic vehemence, but I have never doubted that 
they contained their own indestructible seeds of excel- 
lence ; indeed, that no excellence could well exist with- 
out them. On the other hand, I have heard good 
people, in private life and in public, coldly despise, or 
pitilessly attack the simpler practices as the merest 
hypocrisy or superstition. I am not speaking of worldly 
people, who would have rather denounced them as 
Pharisaical. I am thinking of good people, who have 
grown stern or savage over an active young man still n 
feeling it somehow a comfort to read a psalm in his 
prayer-book before he flung off his coat to prepare for 
rest, or a lively young girl experiencing a sedate glad- 
ness in reading and pondering her chapter before she 
tripped down stairs, to show the first and the brightest 
face at the breakfast-table. I have heard a preacher 
speak of the sense of contentment and security which 
a man or woman experiences after he or she has said 
his or her prayers, as if it were about the most worldly, 



234 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

hardened, and hopeless state of mind. What would 
they have % Are we not to say our prayers % Are we 
not to search the Scriptures % And can there be a more 
becoming, reasonable, reverent period for these exer- 
cises than in our mornings and evenings % And does 
not our reconciled Father himself, who knows the exi- 
gencies of our constitutions and has bestowed their 
instincts, allow us this sense of happiness in a void 
supplied, an obligation fulfilled % Will he thus despise 
his children when they " feel after him," gropingly, still 
loyal in their darkness and dulness J And will he not 
rather bless them, and give them more and more light 1 
We must know that the letter killeth, while it is the 
spirit which maketh alive; and that, without repent- 
ance, faith, holiness, and charity, our prayers and read- 
ings are but as so many dead ceremonies condemning 
us like our other abused privileges. But, in the name 
of simplicity and modesty, how are we to advance in 
repentance, faith, holiness, and charity otherwise than 
by a manlike, womanlike, childlike adherence to rules 
and orders ; like Arnold, not being ashamed to say our 
prayers ; like our wisest, mightiest philosophers, never 
doubting our gain when we regularly read our Bibles ? 

" Be good, my dear, and read your Bible," said Sir 
Walter to Lockhart; and the great genius had the 
tenderest human heart, as well as the most sagacious 
mind. Read your Bibles, if not absolutely impossible, 
every morning and evening, in verses or chapters, ac- 
cording to your discretion ; use your reading, and do 
not abuse it. That is, think of it as a blessing, a con- 
solation, a direction, and a support; be unassuming 



Godliness. 235 

and nnexacting ; look for teaching from the Spirit of all 
wisdom ; take up your own private interpretation in a 
lowly, liberal temper ; beware of judging your neighbor 
whom you fancy careless in her devotions ; be not 
browbeaten by your other neighbor, who, independent, 
mystical, or bigoted, censures you as at once childish 
and bold in your safeguard and in your freedom. Trust 
grace, sure in its promise, no less sure in its perform- 
ance, and read your Bible, wishing and striving to do 
its behests. Look upon it as your storehouse and 
your armory, and when times of "refreshing," or of 
trial, of life and work, or of decay and death, arrive, 
do not question but it will supply you with a share of 
victuals and weapons. Try the practice sincerely, un- 
assumingly, and lovingly, and you may perhaps marvel 
at its power. 

Prayer is so lofty a subject, so private and intensely 
personal an interest, that a writer who is not a com- 
missioned servant of the Lord may well shrink from 
obtruding an opinion on her fellows on a matter which 
is between them and their Maker. And yet who can 
dwell on godliness, and from delicate scruples omit the 
mention of prayer % After the Divine model of prayer, 
see that you pray your own prayer, and no other man 
or woman's ; and consider the two invaluable sugges- 
tions you have received, — that your prayers are to be 
still and secluded communions, and that they are not 
to be heard for their much speaking. Let them be very 
real prayers, cries for help, grateful thanks, adoring 
praise. Our Father in heaven, your Father and mine, 
as well as the Almighty God of the universe, will not 



236 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

be impatient of our little, fretting troubles, our trifling 
attainments, our feeble, faltering worship. He who 
cares for the sparrows and the ravens will heed the 
aching or the bounding heart. He will have our own 
words, and not another's; our own pleadings, wrestlings, 
and rejoicings, rather than the experience of even a 
David or a Moses second-hand. Blessed be his name ! 
He does care for our struggles and our victories, our 
weal and our woe \ and our Elder Brother cannot, 
either on earth or in heaven, lose his fellow-feeling, his 
entire and exquisite sympathy with his race. 

After the reading of the Bible and prayer, and keep- 
ing that day in seven which is given us to float as far 
as we can from worldliness, selfishness, and malice, and 
as near as we can to adoration, peace, and love, I be- 
lieve that any other aim to this end of godliness is 
minor and relative. I take it for granted that no hon- 
est, good girl will wilfully and deliberately commit a 
known sin, however often, alas ! she may stumble and 
fall unawares in her career. What is not in itself sinful, 
is so far lawful. No doubt all that is lawful is not ex- 
pedient. An apostle has said so, and wt are bound to 
try to be enlightened on this expediency, with regard 
to our own welfare, and, above all, for our neighbor's 
sake, because the question of expediency seems to refer 
principally to our influence over our neighbor. But I 
think, generally, whatever is lawful is not only allow- 
able, but under due limits and proportions beneficial. 
I do not agree with those who would introduce a 
system of monachism into our social life, who regard 
God's world as the wicked world, God's kingdom of 



Godliness. 237 

art as the Devil's kingdom, and the deep, tender affec- 
tions which our great Father has implanted in our 
bosoms as so many cords of idolatry. 

I would be a ransomed woman, and then, while per- 
forming the work which has been given to me to do, I 
would not fear to relish all the comforts, pleasures, and 
joys which He has set in my path ; believing that God 
is well pleased with our contentment and gladness, that 
he asks and accepts the praise and thanks of our merry 
hearts, as well as the confessions and petitions of our 
mourning spirits. The Church, in my heart, should 
have its festivals as well as its fasts. 

Thus, as minor and relative, would I regard all other 
religious reading after the study of the Bible. At the 
same time, I think a girl in earnest about godliness will 
have her eye on its promotion in some part of her gen- 
eral reading. I would recommend her in this search, 
as an advice which cannot be repeated too often (so. 
much are we tempted to adopt a parrot-like imitation 
of each other), to read what she feels applies to herself 
and profits herself. Not to insist on drugging herself 
with another person's medicine, too strong, or it may 
be too weak, or otherwise totally unsuited to her consti- 
tution and ailment. 

While frankly taking what God in his providence 
sends, and joining in the toil and the recreation of the 
work-a-day and holiday world, many good people are 
distressed by a sense of disruption between their spir- 
itual and their natural life. Probably nothing but expe- 
rience, growth in Christianity weaned from selfishness, 
and a higher, closer, and clearer comprehension of, and 



238 Papers for Thoughtful Girls, 

communion with the Divine life will overcome this dis- 
cord. John Wesley recommended short ejaculatory 
prayers, if no more than " The Lord direct me ! "' " The 
Lord help me ! " and this corresponds literally with the 
apostle's "Pray without ceasing," "Be instant in pray- 
er." Others have chosen a verse in the morning, to be 
as it were blended and intertwined with their day's 
occupations and enjoyments, so as to leaven them 
throughout. Certainly, when prone to covetousness, 
the admonition, " Let your treasure be in heaven," 
ought to be an aid to us ; when driven to unrest, so 
should the meditation on the peace which was His 
bequest ; and when entangled in ambitious effort, and 
its accompanying strife, so should also the recommen- 
dation not to desire vainglory. 

Another habit, whose acquisition is frequently pressed 
upon us, is to review at night our day's transactions, 
and humbly acknowledge their success while we lament 
their failures, in order to have our conscience always 
clean and in working order. To this has been added 
the glancing over, in the morning, a rough plan of what 
the day's duties, trials, temptations, pleasures, pains 
may be, with the intent of a consequent preparation for 
them ; guarding, at the same time, lest this should inter- 
fere with taking no heed for the morrow, and casting 
our cares on One who careth for us. 

But, let me reiterate, these are minor and relative 
obligations, and must always depend very much on the 
temperament, condition, and surroundings of the indi- 
vidual concerned. They may be easily erected into 
eleventh commandments, and twisted into will-worship 



Godliness. 239 

and bodily exercise. If held tenaciously, doggedly, in 
a spirit of self-conceit, fussiness, or intolerance, they 
may not only be very injurious to the girl and woman 
relying on them, but to all those with whom she comes 
in contact, causing false inferences, unjust judgments, 
and inflicting grave wounds in the broad humanity of 
the Gospel. 

I cannot find that in the wide or concentrated laws 
of the Bible there are any express injunctions to formal 
acts in the promotion of godliness beyond " Search the 
Scriptures" ; "Be instant in prayer" ; "Forsake not the 
assembling of yourselves together " ; " Do good and 
communicate." The mantle is a wide one ; preserve 
its simple integrity, and its folds will fit the shape of 
youth and age, rich and poor, those whom the north 
gives up, and those whom the south keeps not back. 
Do not confine and cut it for mankind, according to 
your own poor taste and figure, at your peril. 



MISS VIOL. 

cc T T OW can ye thole it, Miss Viol % I cannot 

J- A comprehend it." 

The speaker was an old man in hodden gray ; a stiff, 
consequential, working-man, with the long upper lip, 
the long rabbit teeth, the long head, the long terrier 
back (though it was rounded now with years and 
labor), of a sagacious but opinionative old servant of 
the public. 

" How can ye thole it, Miss Viol % I cannot com- 



240 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

prehend it." The speech was out of keeping with the 
decided, or, as he would have called it, preceese charac- 
ter of Geordie, the gardener of the old-world town of 
Hatton, who managed his own little garden, and its 
cauliflowers and codlins, to his own mind, and domi- 
neered over the gardens of his employers from seed- 
time till harvest. The speech was not in his usual 
style, and the look was not the ordinary look of the 
egotistical, positive old man ; it was a softened, pitiful 
look from an inferior to a superior long known and 
respected, not for her glories, but her tribulations. 

Miss Viol was a big, gaunt woman, in brown drapery, 
with a tight look about her costume, as if she could 
not be cumbered with loose folds. Her face was raw- 
boned, as well as her figure, and her gray hair, dry and 
bristling, corresponded with its harsh outline. She had 
Geordie's long upper lip \ but in Miss Viol's case, it 
did not convey the idea of the utmost limits of human 
confidence ; it had no more than the sagacity which is 
inalienable from a long upper lip, and so far from being 
self-assured it had a nervous twitch which betrayed a 
conscientious, tender disposition. Indeed Miss Viol 
was not only wise in her generation, but so soft-hearted 
and soft-tempered with her thoughtfulness, that how 
she parried the strokes of destiny, maintained her sin- 
gle combat with fortune, and held on her tempestuous 
career, were standing miracles at Hatton. 

Miss Viol did not take it ill that old Geordie, whom 
she was hiring to " dibble kale " and " sheuch leeks," 
should allude to her misery. It was too widely and 
intimately known for her to be concerned to conceal 



Godliness. 24 1 

it ; and perhaps that was the one rent of relief in the 
black clouds through which she passed in her life-voy- 
age, like the moon on a stormy night. Neither did she 
refuse commiseration from Geordie ; she was too meek 
a woman for that, and too set apart, as it were, and 
compelled, like the Ancient Mariner, to ask commisera- 
tion from all humanity. 

" I dinna ken, Geordie," answered Miss Viol, in her 
uncouth phraseology, with the slow, thick articulation 
of a woman who speaks seldom, " unless it be by prayer 
and fasting, — fasting from thoughts of self, and what 
might have been. Ye ken the very worst description 
of deevils could not abide prayer and fasting." 

Miss Viol was the eldest daughter of the saddler of 
Hatton ; the man who occupied the corner-house, with 
the dingy, stucco-horse capering above his door ; a man 
who lived when saddlers drove a brisker trade than they 
do now-a-days, and when their peculiar traffic brought 
them much in contact with rough country lairds and. 
farmers. It was an age, moreover, when a boon com- 
panion was prized as a treasure, or rather snared as a 
prey ; and when Adam Forsyth was young, he was no 
more like Miss Viol than a starling is like an owl. He 
was a merry, ready-witted man, careless in his habits, 
and coarse in his feelings, but not more so than many 
another bon vivant in high or low life ; his full, flexi- 
ble lips were constantly curving in broad mimicry, and 
meeting together with comical force in rich suggestions. 
Miss Viol did not resemble him in the least ; she took 
after her mother, who minded the shop, strove to rear 
her children and attend to her husband ; and who, worn 
11 p 



242 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

and weary, dropped into her grave half a score of years 
before. Miss Viol stepped conveniently into her moth- 
er's shoes, young as she then was ; received orders in 
her father's frequent absences, kept accounts, endeav- 
ored quite ineffectually to control the thoughtless ap- 
prentices, spent long days stitching at ladies' saddles, 
and executing all kinds of artistic checkers in white 
silk on the stuffed leather. The sight of our mothers' 
side-saddle always reminds me of Miss Viol, for that 
was the only fancy-work she ever knew, and she had a 
fond pride in her exploits. As for recreation, she had 
the training of the younger children, — a set of girls 
who, one after another, grew up the " marrow n of their 
father, with high animal spirits, strong passions, and 
very slender organs of veneration, justice, and benevo- 
lence. Not ten Miss Viols could have curbed these 
high heads, and held in these hard mouths. 

Miss Viol was now known as the middle-aged, long- 
suffering daughter of the tippling, boozing saddler of 
Hatton, with his light, younger lasses. Her charge was 
to defend the father from the results of his gross and 
inveterate intemperance, and to save the girls from vice 
and ruin ; and night and day she labored at a task fit 
to be compared with that of Sisyphus. Night and day 
she guarded the reckless, scoffing sisters ; morning after 
morning she sustained her father in his stupefaction ; 
night after night she bore with him in his madness. 
She was never absent from her post. That dark, mean 
parlor, with its gray drugget, its tawdry girls' finery, its 
silver plates and stirrups, and leather peaks and flaps, 
saw a sacrifice noble as Iphigenia's, a tragedy sad as 



Godliness. 243 

Lear's ; not a death by the knife, sharp yet swift, but a 
long anguish of dislike, apprehension, disgust, horror ; 
not one instance of expulsion, cruel and monstrous, but 
a slow torture of -rejection as friend and counsellor, and 
bare sufferance as servant and slave. And Miss Viol 
was a timid, prejudiced woman, who screamed at a 
mouse and ran from a cow! She bore it; the pure, 
mild woman lived on in the foul atmosphere of vanity 
and sin, never relaxing her efforts, never relinquishing 
her hope. 

" If I could but weather the wind with the light-head- 
ed lasses, and see them safely married off my hands ; 
though their men were puir men and dour men, I would 
not mind ; they need their masters : if I could but see 
my father take to hamelier, cannier ways, I would not 
grudge the warstle with their tempers. I 'm sure they're 
welcome to a' my aught; they're well entitled to the 
best of me." So mused Miss Viol, who stood by her 
colors while the vessel reeled and the shot rattled, and 
who would have gone down with them without a dream 
of desertion. 

Miss Viol was not only stanch, she was tranquil in 
her great trouble ; as she said, she prayed and fasted ; 
she fasted from self, and she prayed directly towards 
God's mercy-seat without doubt or distraction. She 
was grieved by the mystery of iniquity ; but it did not 
shake her living faith ; she read her Bible as another 
eats strong meat and drinks strong drink for nourish- 
ment and stimulant ; and on this diet, like the prophet, 
after he had tasted angels' food, she travelled many a 
day in the waste, howling wilderness. 



244 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

I have used one simile with regard to Miss Viol so 
appropriate that I cannot forsake it for another. The 
moon rides securely among drifting, tempest-tost clouds, 
wan and yet steadfast, soft and yet clear : so Miss Viol 
knew adversity. 

I will say it for the rude little town of Hatton, it 
viewed Miss Viol like a planet in the sky; it surrounded 
her with a broad halo of respect and good-will. Not 
that she understood it ; she received their pity, but 
their praise would have scared her. Still you might 
have sought up and down, far and near, and not found 
a lady in the land more truly honored than that plain, 
awkward, uninformed woman. 

Night after night, in the long dewy evenings of sum- 
mer, and the bitter, black nights of winter, Miss Viol 
sat nodding, until the small hours, over her feminine 
saddlery, or stumbled down the steep, narrow stair, to 
let in the sisters gadding from house to house, gossiping 
at street-doors, returning to break the silence of the 
" hushed, holy night " with their loud defiant laughter. 
And again, when the morning-star was dying in the sky 
before the pearly white of the rising day, the same 
shuffling, spent foot crept out to admit a very beast 
into the house. Woe is me ! it was like an imprisoned 
angel dwelling with and ministering to Pan and his 
satyrs. 

More furiously boiled and bubbled the ferment and 
scum of the circumstances among which Miss Viol's 
lot was cast. Sister after sister whirled on the verge of 
the precipice, until their remaining atop, and not being 
dashed to pieces on the stones below, might have puz- 



Godliness. 245 

zled sages, had they condescended to study such paltry 
probabilities. Adam Forsyth became so fatuous at one 
time, so frenzied at another, that it was a question for 
the safety of himself and his fellows whether he should 
be left his own master. Cool, strong men shuddered 
when they thought of him raging loose, during long 
nights, in a household of defenceless women. 

" Na," exclaimed Miss Viol, when she was examined 
on the point, " I dinna trust Mysie and Ailie and Jean 
and Kirsty within his reach ; I send them quietly to 
their beds, and I lock the room-door when he happens 
to be very wild, and I 've to sit up and bear him com- 
pany." 

" And what, in the name of mercy, do you do your- 
self, Miss Viol?" 

" I 'm not feared ; I say, ' Father, you maun be 
quiet,' or, ' Father, you would not hurt me,' and he 
leaves off what he 's about ; and I read to him, or he 
reads to me, — he was aye proud of his reading, — -and 
though he forgets the place, he does not misca' the 
words. Na, you maun confide my father to me, others 
might be rough with him, and he would not survive the 
shame of being confined. You maunna even him to 
that. Trust him to me, and he '11 do no harm, and 
you '11 never rue it." 

It was in sheer regard for Miss Viol, because her 
heart was set on preserving her father's liberty, and on 
continuing his keeper, and because she impressed them 
with the singular weapon of her serenity, that the men 
granted her request. 

" My dawties," Miss Viol would coax the insensate 



246 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

sisters, " If you '11 no gang that gate the nicht, I '11 put 
on my Leghorn and my Paisley shawl, and walk with 
you mysel' another road the morn's nicht. You would 
not be seen abroad with sic a sorry 1 Hout ! I'm no 
bonnie, but I '11 serve to set aff four sic strapping cum- 
mers as you are. You need not take the dorts, Ailie ; 
but if you will bring Archie Beltrees here, I must bring 
my saddle, and sit beside you. I might stay in the 
shop, that's the place for me, the place I 'm fondest of, 
did you say ? " Miss Viol had a habit of repeating her 
neighbors' sentences, trying to catch the sense and 
sound, which they did not trouble themselves to make 
plain to her, since, in the midst of her drudgery, the 
sense of hearing had prematurely failed her. " Surely 
you would not have me set you lasses in my room, it is 
liker a gray-headed woman, sic as me, than a wheen 
dafhn' lasses, sic as you ; though, I think, I did not 
daff when I was not gray-headed. But you ken, Ailie, 
Archie Beltrees has an ill name, and though you do 
not believe it, that 's not to say I 'm to be content with 
the wolf and kid at play together out of my eyesight 
and ear-shot. Archie will smoke, and bring on my 
hoast, is that it ? Well, I must hoast, and be done with 
it. I maun just stand a round of hoasting; it will not 
finish rne at this time of day." 

The moon would not be driven from the sky, would 
not withdraw her beams, though the ragged, ruffian 
clouds closed her in on all sides, were piled up before 
and behind her, and every little while tore right across 
her patient face. 

It is hard to say what good Miss Viol effected in her 



Godliness. 247 

ill-conditioned, rebel rout of a family ; but I can vouch 
she established such a standard of virtue in Hatton as 
is rarely excelled. In the way of example, that noblest 
preacher, Miss Viol, was a notable missionary. 

There comes a period to human wrong and sorrow. 
Adam Forsyth died in one of his fits of delirium, and 
Miss Viol wiped away her scalding tears. 

" It is the will of the Father," she whispered, " I dare 
not speak up against Him." 

Even that last awful dispensation could not cast Miss 
Viol from her rock. 

The head gone, the disorderly family sprung asunder 
in all directions, like beads when the string is snapped. 
Miss Viol had no longer the power, though she had 
the will, to preserve the elements of disunion in unity. 
Some of the girls amended their errors in after life, and 
came to better ends than had been expected of them, 
for God is merciful, and the ways of his grace are mani- 
fold ; to them she would point with the most disinter- 
ested, the purest love, and thankfulness. Others went 
swiftly to the lowest depths of degradation, and these 
she relieved to the last out of her own pittance, weeping 
tears of pity over them, and still hoping against hope in 
their reformation, when they thought no shame to come 
begging from her, and robbing her on whom they had 
preyed all their days. 

But Miss Viol was free ; free to occupy a peaceful, 
orderly home ; free to maintain herself decently by her 
curious saddlery. That single woman's life, so deso- 
late to many a bereaved woman, was " biggit wa's " of 
safety, contentment, and abundance to Miss Viol. Her 



248 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

Book, her sadlery, her teapot, her cat, her geraniums, 
her friends, who claimed her now in kindly bands, were 
all her own. She said, wonderingly, in her modesty, 
" The warld was ower gude to her ; she had lived long 
in it, and never kenned it liked her so well ; she had 
done nothing for it, her hand had been taken up with 
her own folk." She could not comprehend why the 
world should " fash " with her ; and had it not been for 
her good-nature, she would have been affronted by its 
courtship. 

" And you 11 no need to be so thrang with your read- 
ing and your prayers now, Miss Viol," suggested Geor- 
die, as he came across with a basket of his potatoes, 
his own finest kidneys, to present to her. Geordie's 
question was projected, not from idle curiosity, but to 
solve some doubt deep down in his own heart. I am 
sorry to say Geordie was suspected of heresy \ at the 
same time my private opinion always tended to this 
point, that his theological eccentricities proceeded from 
a certain thrawnness inherent in his constitution, which 
impelled him to sow peas broadways instead of length- 
ways, and to switch trailing roses, in defiance of the 
remonstrances of their owners. My idea was that the 
more you meddled with him, the more rootedly hereti- 
cal he grew, and that, therefore, the less notice you 
took of his heresy the better. Miss Viol never inter- 
fered with theories ; I doubt if she had any shapely 
theory of her own, and therefore Geordie had recourse 
to her in some long-standing perplexity. 

" Na, Geordie, ye 're wrang," explained Miss Viol, so 
unhesitatingly but unpretendingly, that Geordie sub- 



Godliness. 249 

mitted to be told he was wrong, like — like a man. 
"I thocht for a while, like you, that my verses, and 
my psalms, and my petitions, and all but my praises 
might be laid by for the rest of my life, while I worked, 
and walked about, and pleased myself; but soon every- 
thing grew dreich and dreary, and my life was not what 
I hoped it would have been.; my hearthstane w r as not 
so cheery, the very honeysuckles, and cock-roses, and 
butterflies were not so sweet and bright as I expected, 
now that I had time to daunder by the hedges and 
loanings, and take a good look at them. I saw I 
needed help for my very thanksgiving. I could not 
admire and be glad without His teaching, any more than 
I could bear and forbear. I pray now to enjoy, lad, as 
I prayed then to suffer." 

Let the earth come between the sun and the moon 
on a cloudless night in May, and there will spread an 
ineffable sadness and darkness over the whole fairy 
landscape ; even as an eclipse of the moon on a night 
of storm and tempest, a mirk, wild December night, 
will carry gross darkness on its wings, and quench the 
last struggling hope of the shepherd to buffet the blast, 
trace the landmarks, descend the fearful mountain, and 
reach the sheltered, peopled valley. 




11 1 




Z/ ^N. X ^3*£fc7* 



X. 



KINDLINESS. 




ODLINESS without kindliness I believe to 
be a delusion, and, like all delusions affect- 
ing religion, baneful both to those who are 
blinded and to those who are revolted by it. 
" He who loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, 
how can he love God whom he hath not seen V 9 is a 
question which admits of no exception. As there is no 
sound, enduring kindliness without godliness, there is 
no godliness without kindliness. Kindliness is an inte- 
gral part of godliness : " Pure religion and undefiled is 
to visit the widow and the fatherless in their affliction, 
and to keep one's self unspotted from the world." 

In one sense kindliness must also be a work of God's 
grace ; but like godliness itself, it is to be nourished, 
strengthened, ripened by human energy and constancy 
exerted on means. Kindliness must be a study to a 
good girl. But, in case of misconception, understand 
kindliness as standing for good-will, benevolence, mind- 
fulness, and mercy ; which may exist in company with 
plainness, stiffness, starchedness, seriousness, and even 



Kindliness. 251 

an exterior of sternness \ and which is quite irrespec- 
tive of a soft temper and a caressing address. It is 
curious, and a little vexatious to find how matter and 
manner are confounded ; how so many honeyed words 
from a plausible, crafty woman, and so many sharp 
ones from a true and tender one, are carelessly allowed 
to reverse the world's estimation of their character, and 
are received even by those who ought to know better, 
as correct indices of the individuals. 

The sweetness of manner is so notorious a varnish, 
as to become the butt of the corroding acids and scrap- 
ing-knives of many of our writers of fiction. Nowhere 
is it more extensively displayed than in the inordinate 
love of children and children's society affected by some 
of the women of our day ; and in the exaggerated esti- 
mation of childish worth displayed largely in some de- 
partments of the world of letters. Because our Master 
taught us to reverence little children by reminding us 
that their helplessness and ignorance of fraud and 
violence rendered them, and all who are like them, 
especially the charge of his Father's angels, one half 
of the world professes to regard these little people as 
angels outright. This extravagance has even been 
pushed, in the face of a thousand examples of childish 
meanness and tyranny, to the daring extent of a denial 
of original sin. It strikes me that this foolish notion, 
of which men and women are so proud, is but a rag of 
spurious humility, for you see it is actually easier for 
your arrogance and headiness, your sloth and obstinacy, 
your desperate covetousness and turbulence to bow, 
half sceptically, half laughingly, to a child's sceptre of 



252 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

rushes, than to pay a modest and womanly homage to 
a man's truncheon. 

Kindliness, then, never consisted or even lay to any 
extent in "becks and bows, and wreathed smiles," 
though real pleasantness is a great element in winning 
the favor of our fellows. Neither is it by any means 
engrossed or fully expressed by almsdeeds, though with- 
out question, if we do feel tenderly to our neighbor at 
all, we feel with peculiar tenderness to our neighbor in 
any suffering and wretchedness which we can compre- 
hend. " Though I give all my goods to feed the poor, 
and have not charity, I am nothing." This kindliness 
is charity, liberality and generosity of spirit, fairness and 
impartiality of judgment, mildness and meekness of 
heart rather than of tone, kindly affectionateness in all 
ties and relations, — tenderest in the nearest, mellow 
and sympathetic in the most removed. It is of the 
very essence of Christianity, and the neglect of it has 
inflicted more injury on the cause of Him who is love 
divine, has wounded him more sorely in the house of his 
friends than the absence of any other quality or faculty 
whatever. I would urge it the more imperatively that 
it is (but certainly by no means to the same extent as 
formerly) overlooked, or understated, or in some respect 
slurred over in many lessons for young people. Kind- 
liness is only second to godliness. On one occasion 
the Apostle accorded it the precedence : " If we do 
not love the brother whom we have seen, how can we 
love him," in whose glorious image that brother was 
originally created, the " God whom we have not seen"? 
On woman, by natural constitution and time-out-of- 



Kindliness. 253 

mind institutions, kindliness is so imperative, that the 
want of it brings down express scandal on godly women, 
or rather on women professing godliness. I need not 
allude to the satires, deserved and undeserved, by some 
of the strangely neutral, some of the still more strangely 
and sadly antagonistic, and some of the merely smart 
and pungent writers of the day. This defect is gener- 
ally seen where our very instincts should have pointed^ 
out to us the flagrant outrage, by our own hearths/ and 
in our own homes. Domestic duties, always holy and 
dear, are often monotonous, — have often their wearing 
irritations and carking cares ; they are unseasoned by 
excitement ; they claim no renown. The self-sacrifice 
they involve, although it is often very complete, is so 
subtle, that it becomes no cause of pride ; in fact, it is 
made almost inadvertently and insensibly. Therefore 
stragglers and adventurers are won from these still, 
shady, simple paths by vanity, by the restlessness of 
craving, unemployed energies, and also (to do them 
justice) by a mistaken sense of duty. To enter upon 
public services, they desert their private posts, and they 
are thus guilty of a double infidelity ; they have for- 
saken their first love, and by taking upon them engage- 
ments for which they were not free, they have also done 
despite to and brought shame upon what was in itself 
fair and honorable, pure and lovely, and of good report. 
This evil is so very grave, that it needs the strongest 
protest against its existence and recurrence. But, on 
the other hand, to those who are disposed to insist on 
"busy-bodies," " showy professors," " ill-ordered, ill- 
balanced enthusiasts," we would state respectfully and 



254 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

good-humoredly that it is the scum and froth of the 
pot which rises to the surface ; that the sound hearts 
and true, the deep hearts and tender, the sensible, 
practical women, the cheery, patient women, the con- 
stant, untiring, unassuming asserters and maintainers 
of righteousness and love, work everywhere unseen, 
unheard of, until the day shall declare it. And our 
generation has proved sufficiently that great deeds of 
mercy can be done by women, whose household names 
have never been spoken without a blessing. 

Kindliness is thoroughly opposed to meanness, to 
malice, to mischief of every description. It bids us 
have faith in one another; it bids us bear long with 
one another ; it tells us to be obedient, respectful, and 
tender to our elders \ firm and yet indulgent to our 
juniors ; reasonable and gracious to our equals ; just, 
thoughtful, feeling, and helpful to our inferiors. It 
negatives mere human ambition and selfish rivalry ; it 
altogether forbids slander, talebearing, and backbiting ; 
it even cries O fie, fie ! against ridicule, when ridicule 
verges on levity and cynicism. 

Our Bible has at least this superiority over the He- 
brew Talmud, that we have the one in a moderate com- 
pass, so that we can all read it from end to end, without 
any stretch of application, every year of our lives, if we 
choose \ while the other consists of such a mass of 
writing, and host of saws, that a youth's entire educa- 
tion is spent in becoming " ready at the law." Here 
are only two studies for you girls, Godliness and Kind- 
liness. Master them, and you may be what you will, 
clever or stupid, learned or ignorant, a belle or a 



Kindliness. 255 

dowdy, it will signify wondrous little either here or 
hereafter. 

How we toil and scheme and strive for our young 
ones, and see how simply they may be furnished with 
all that is absolutely necessary for the battle of life ! 
We would give our beloved, — what would we not give 
our beloved of rich and rare, of exultation and ecstasy % 
But God gives his beloved sleep ; rest in his tabernacle 
from the strife of tongues * the rest which remaineth in 
the green pastures and by the still waters. 



NURNBERG EGGS. 

THE room was carpetless, save where rugs were 
placed in front of the old sofa, and below the 
table before the window ; but the boards were scoured, 
and white, — I had almost said, as snow, — white at 
least as very clean whitey-brown paper. There were 
chests of drawers along the sides of the room, in com- 
pany with the chairs, and very handy they were, without 
question. In the window was a mass of house-flowers, 
— myrtles, balsams, roses, with a trellis of vines erected 
over the whole, and converting the window into a bower. 
Very pretty ; and what was better in itself, wholesome, 
though it involved a very unwholesome practice. In 
your ear, reader, that window was not open for above 
ten minutes at a time from September till May. How 
could it be, with that gay garden of Southern flowers 
wdthin, and the frozen snows of the North without 1 
Well it was for the uncalculating inmates, that the plants 



256 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

deodorized faithfully, and without making any fuss about 
it. The human plants could have stood more than a 
breath or two of the keen, cutting air; did encounter 
it freely to go to Sunday sermons and prayers, to the 
weekly ball, to visiting, shopping, and marketing ; but 
their nurslings, the bower of Italian flowers, would have 
withered under the cold touch of the ice-king's fingers. 
There was a stove in the room, keeping up its heat to 
the temperature of a comfortable oven. A man was 
standing playing on a piano ; in short, it was Germany, 
and not England. 

^ " If little Peter gets up the hymn for Christmas, I '11 
give him a Niirnberg egg off the tree ; we 're northern 
birds, but we can furnish such eggs once upon a time," 
said the musician, in a loud, rich, joyous voice, address- 
ing a girl who entered the room, and sat down in the 
bower in the window. 

Before I give the girl's answer, I should like to in- 
troduce the father and daughter to you. He was Herr 
Wilhelm Kcenig, general merchant in the northern town 
of Schneehaufen. He was not an idealized German ; 
he was big, sanguine (with a wreath of ruddy-brown hair 
round his mouth and down to his throat), hilarious, 
hearty; I dare say he could be determined when he 
liked, but he was mostly jovial, — the prince of good- 
fellows, — with curls, scarcely tinged with gray, cluster- 
ing round his very square forehead, and with square 
white teeth, which he was perpetually showing. He 
was an ardent, vivacious fellow, with a quick perception 
of the ludicrous ; he was tolerably vain, he thought 
nobody had improved his musical education (on which 



"'iff 

km 



^Iti {^ \ l \h ; 




HERR WILLY KCENTG. 



258 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

themselves, and took individual twists, and were any- 
thing but pliant and graceful. Happily they were 
hardy, which was of more importance ; but little Al- 
brecht in the toy-shop, and Hans in the druggist's, and 
Fritz with his uncle at the farm, were far too much 
engrossed with their toys, drugs, cattle, and sheep, and 
their play, when they had a moment's liberty, to have 
any sympathy or attention to spare for their father. 
They only went to him in their scrapes, and, on far 
fewer occasions, in their successes. Even little Peter, 
the musician, did not seek to have much companion- 
ship with his father, beyond the necessary instruction 
from him. Was not Peter himself already in the choir ; 
and a miniature bugler in the Schneehaufen band ; and 
was he not already eagerly counting his pay, and an- 
ticipating his flight as a true German travelling-appren- 
tice, to pass in succession through the great music- 
houses of Leipsic, Berlin, Vienna? The same was the 
case with the girls ; Thekla and Elise in a worsted 
shop ; Agatha assisting her aunt in the great inn of 
Schneehaufen, the inn with the sign of the three golden 
crowns, borrowed from Rheinland and Cologne \ even 
baby Rica was more engrossed with her anxiety about 
her milk-sops and her sugar-balls, than her father's 
kisses. Am I describing a very selfish family % Only 
little hearts that had too soon had their bloom rubbed 
off them ; little hands too soon taught to wield the 
tools of labor independently of their parents. The 
brood had love for each other, but they were so busy 
they were only able to bring it forth on great occasions. 
Madam Kcenig was also not a bad woman. Herr 



Kindliness. 259 

Koenig was persuaded, correctly, that she had been a 
good wife to him ; but she was dreadfully worried and 
she was dreadfully cross. She could not altogether 
help it, I conclude, for she was a little woman, with the 
delicacy of constitution which Bertha had inherited ; 
and the superhuman energy which was required to 
overcome her weakness and do her duty to her nu- 
merous descendants was likely to engender acidity. A 
needle will prick you and draw blood, as well as sew 
up your seams. Madam Koenig was like a needle, 
sharp, clear, keen ; her little figure is meagre, her once 
fair complexion is gray; her blue eyes, sapphire eyes 
originally, are steel-blue eyes now. 

Yes, Herr Koenig met with little ingulgence in his 
own household, save from Bertha, and Bertha held 
little communication beyond commands, requests, and 
gossip, with any member of the family except her father. 
Altogether, the Koenigs' was not a relaxing home. It 
was too bracing, for that matter, dangerous for stinting 
and blighting all the flowers of fancy and feeling, spar- 
ing only those material flowers in the bower in the 
family room. 

Bertha Kcenig was an idealized German; she was 
not one of those stout little German girls whom we see 
so often and shake hands with so freely ; who bake and 
sew, and dance and chatter fearlessly with the very 
coffee-sisters, and are in their element in the tea-gar- 
dens. She was what grows up at their side, a waxen- 
natured girl, like her own balsams, delicate, refined, but 
abstracted, and, to a certain extent, impractical, — what 
Caroline Perthes was in her maiden days. Bertha was 



260 ' Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

intellectual, and happily for herself, she had not con- 
fined herself to Goethe and Schiller. Klopstock and 
the old German hymns had moved her inmost spirit. 
Such a nature was sadly out of keeping in the Kcenigs' 
house, yet it was developed there, and though it pined, 
no great violence had wounded or slain it. Madam 
Kcenig took care of that. Bertha was the delicate 
child, and notwithstanding her mother thought her far 
too fanciful for this world, and too studious for a 
woman, and sadly indifferent and languid for one who 
should one day aspire to be an expert housekeeper, she 
was too good a mother to do more than speak sharply 
to Bertha herself, and rout every one else who inter- 
fered with her. 

I cannot say that there was any likeness between 
Bertha and Herr Kcenig. He was the impersonation 
of a brave sensuous nature. She dwelt in the spirit- 
world very much apart from life, the earth and its con- 
cerns, both enjoyments and pains. But Herr Kcenig, 
though a hard-working man, had the most leisure in 
the family, and he was infinitely better-humored than 
Madam Kcenig ; so Bertha and Herr Kcenig drew 
together. 

It must be mentioned here that Bertha's great wish 
at this time — and it amounted almost to a passion 
with the girl — was to go and stay for a season with 
her uncle, Pastor Miiller, in one of the great towns. 
Bertha had once visited him for a day, and that glimpse 
had been enough. He was a liberal, poetic, and pi- 
ous theologian, such as Germany to her honor often 
rears, with kindred wife, kindred children, and kindred 



Kindliness. 261 

friends; the very house breathing an atmosphere of 
noble thought, playful fancy, and generous, constant 
benevolence ! Her cousin Rudolph, the holder of the 
prize-medal of his town, the author of verses which 
Bertha never said to herself in the moonlight alone in 
the girls' room, when the other girls were singing and 
talking and entertaining their companions down-stairs, 
without trembling and crying in an ecstasy of admira- 
tion, — how Bertha would like to see and know her 
cousin Rudolph ! the blush rose-color came to her 
cheek at the mere thought of it. Her cousin Hedwig, 
who was first pupil at the Conservatoire, and had played 
to the Princess, and caused Bertha's father to pull his 
beard and go off into extravagances whenever he spoke 
of her! — if Herr Willy could have been jealous, it 
would have been on account of a daughter like Hedwig 
Miiller to perform his marches and mazurkas, and 
inspire his long-coming masses. Little Peter was all 
very well ; he had a fine sense of tune, and if he 
proved diligent and obedient might make something 
of the cornet or the violoncello ; but he would never 
play the piano like Hedwig Miiller. Hedwig Miiller 
was inspired with the very soul of harmony ; and what 
would not her cousin Bertha give to be submitted to the 
charm of her art, to be swayed like the pine-branches 
by the wind, to yield up her haunting melancholy, like 
the gloom of King Saul under the harping of the harper 
David? 

Then how good all the Miillers were; how they 
thought for others, planned for others, worked for 
others ! No wretched slavery to the means of living, 



262 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

no engrossing interest in the disposal of such limited 
profits as those gained by Herr Kcenig, no grasping at 
every advantage, and haggling over the expenditure of 
every penny. When there were to be relaxation and 
gratification, the Kcenigs selected the most worldly and 
selfish kinds ; the shooting-gallery for the boys, the 
ribbons to trim afresh the girls' old gowns, — the whole 
generally culminating in the Wednesday's ball, or the 
sports, and the promenade to the Schneehaufen-band 
of a Sunday afternoon. Bertha longed to see all this 
reversed. 

There had been some overtures made by the Miillers 
to have their retiring, sensitive cousin Bertha with them 
for Christmas or Easter • and on the decision of those 
proposals Bertha hung as on a question of life and 
death. But it was still two months to Christmas, and 
it was an instance of Herr Kcenig's forward sanguine- 
ness that he was already disposing of gifts from the 
tree ; and such a plump, substantial gift as a Niirnberg 
egg or watch ! Bertha could not tell how her father 
would fulfil his promise. I am afraid Herr Willy 
promised sometimes without the action following the 
words. Well, the intention was the next best thing to 
the performance. 

With Christinas two months before them, and Herr 
Willy's intention altogether problematical, out and out 
impossible, if it reached Madam Kcenig's ears, Bertha 
yet opposed it, and raised her voice in protest ; not 
loudly or disrespectfully, for Bertha was gentle to a 
degree, and if her eyes were open to the stolidity and 
shallowness of others, they were doubly open to her 



Kindliness. 263 

own weakness, and lamentable shortcomings and blun- 
ders. But she lifted the cudgels like a good little pure- 
minded, high-hearted, scrupulous knight-errant, a Red- 
Cross Knight it must have been, like him who rode 
forth on the first day's adventures from the fairy queen's 
foetstool. 

" Father, is it not bribing Peter to do his duty thus 
to hire him to application, in a hymn too, by a glitter- 
ing toy of a watch % " 

"•What would you have, my daughter % " answered 
Herr Kcenig with animation, but without irritation ; he 
was passionate at times, never peevish. 

" The little fellow must have his reward. Industry 
has its reward. Did you never study that fine maxim, 
Bertha 1 " 

" It is a beggarly maxim, father, in so far as it 
answers to the jingle of coin, the glitter of jewels, or 
the rank of a court place," responded Bertha, firing up. 
" What do you expect him to be but covetous, envious, 
perhaps dishonest, if you teach him that, for a certain 
amount of exertion and submission, it is his right to 
get a certain worldly prize, a watch or a gun or even a 
holiday in the forest ] " 

Herr Kcenig uttered in German an exclamation 
equivalent to " bosh ! " and continued, vehemently, 
though still in the most perfect good-humor, — " The 
boy must have a reward to encourage him to perse- 
verance ; he is not fit to understand any reward but 
such as I offer ; when he is older he may distinguish 
between honor and gain, between what is moral and 
what is material. I leave that time to take care of 
itself." 



264 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

" But, father, is this training Peter to be an evangelist, 
a saint, a martyr." 

" Bless the child ! I don't presume to want Peter to 
be an evangelist, or saint, or martyr, unless as the good 
Lord will have him so. I want him to be a good citi- 
zen j I can aid him so far, and that is my business " ; 
and Herr Kcenig stamped out of the room, but still 
not in dudgeon, rather relishing an argument with 
Bertha. 

What was play to him was, if not death, at least great 
pain to Bertha. Why should they all be so prosaic, 
their minds and hearts so much of the earth, earthy 1 
And why should they spoil Peter, or any young boy, 
by offering a bait to greediness, a trap to entice him 
into low ambition ? Bertha let her knitting fall, and 
sat musing sadly. If she had the ruling of young peo- 
ple, at least all their aims should be pure, their prizes 
such as became immortals. Bertha, with her white, pale 
skin, her light golden hair, her blue eyes raised, and 
her gaze, floating as it were after an unseen kingdom, 
her hands locked as we see them on the bosoms of 
stone effigies, and pointing heavenward, looked a very 
white dove of innocence and spiritual longing. 

And had this Bertha no idol in the background of her 
heart, no covetousness blending with and marring her 
purity] Was Bertha good solely for goodness' sake, 
and could it be said of her, that in all her aspirations, 
strivings, sacrifices, there was no ulterior motive, that 
her left hand held no bribe to lure her right to duty, 
that she was altogether an Israelite without guile 1 Let 
us dwell with Bertha for one or two days, and we shall 
see. 



Kindliness. 265 

The next morning Bertha awoke early, and as she 
lay pondering vaguely beneath her eider-down quilt, the 
clock struck, and with its noise aroused Bertha to the 
fact that there was no stir in the next room occupied by 
her two brothers, who still attended the gymnasium in 
the mornings ; that they had slept too long ; that they 
would rise and run away in too great a hurry to go out 
to the pump and wash, a process of which the sluggish 
lads were not fond in these October mornings when 
they had to break the ice from the cistern, and the icy 
waters caused their round, red cheeks to smart and 
tingle. But Madam Kcenig was as cleanly as a Dutch- 
woman, and would suffer no neglect, no slurring over 
of ablutions y and she who was everywhere in these 
morning hours, with her eyes darting into every corner, 
as the maid Jetta, in her coarse stuff petticoat and 
jacket, and wooden clogs, knew right well, — she would 
discover the base infringement of family rules and fail- 
ures in binding ceremonies. She would even send and 
fetch the boys out of the gymnasium ; she would sum- 
mon Herr Kcenig from his stores, and, putting in his 
hands a literal ashen stave, she would demand of him 
the execution of justice upon the criminals, the inflic- 
tion of the heavy penalty which should save the lads 
from degenerating into vagabonds. 

Well, what of it ? It was no business of Bertha's. 
She had no greater predilection for the slippery court- 
yard, and the iced cistern, and the primitive mode of 
washing for the boys of the house, than the boys them- 
selves. If she awoke the boys, and urged them to rise 
and do their duty, they would be impatient and rude to 



266 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

her ; they would give her no thanks, but treat her as a 
spy and an interloper. Bertha turned to the wall. But 
then there danced before her Pastor Miiller's house, its 
loving deeds and life of generous self-sacrifice. How 
would she be fit for it if she could not even conquer her 
laziness to aid her brothers '] She would become fit for 
it ; she would prepare herself, and then, to be sure, the 
ability would be given her to go and sojourn in the city. 
She sprang out of bed, dressed quickly, and went to 
Albrecht and Hans' room, and approached their cribs. 
The boys slept like logs, and were as sulky as bears at 
being disturbed. 

" It is you, you White Mouse," called Albrecht. 

" What are you doing there % Can't you lie still, 
Leonora, until the Spectre Knight fetches you % " mut- 
tered Hans. 

It was a family joke with the Kcenigs to call Bertha 
Leonora, and argue that her meditative habits were the 
result of an excess of mourning for a knight slain in the 
Thirty Years' War. 

But Bertha thought of the Miillers and persevered, 
and at last she got her brothers up and out to the court, 
and stood in the doorway watching them. 

" You had better come and break the ice, Bertha, 
since you are so forward," shouted Albrecht, ruefully, 
standing without his coat, in his matted hair, winking 
his eyes, and dabbling with a thick finger at the white 
flakes in the cistern. Bertha shivered, but what a fine 
occasion for practising self-denial. 

" Get along, Albrecht," protested Hans ; " you '11 give 
Bertha the ague." 



Kindliness. 267 

After that Bertha thought it was rather pretty and 
amusing to see her rough, hardy brothers shattering 
the ice, thrusting in their arms and heads at one bold 
plunge, coming out blowing and purple, and all the 
time the rising winter sun, silvery-white as the moon, 
striking upon them without dazzling them. 

Bertha was so animated that she ran in, poured out 
the coffee, cut the black bread, and filled the boys' bags 
with the books for the gymnasium, all with her own 
hands. 

" Thanks to you, Whitemouse ; we see white mice 
can look alive when they like." 

Brothers are not the most complimentary recipients 
of bounties ; but Bertha's heart felt warmed, and two or 
three times during the day's knitting she thought of the 
morning scene in the court-yard, and smiled and coupled 
it with the far-away Miillers, and felt almost certain that 
she would go to her uncle's in the cultivated, intellectual, 
philanthropic city. Bertha was livelier than usual, and 
more inclined to act than to devote every stolen moment 
to reading, and conning over mentally what she had 
read. She reflected that if the Miillers were here, they 
would go in such hard weather, and ask poor old Beata 
how her stack of wood keeps up, and perhaps read a 
favorite hymn to her from her song-book. Bertha 
watched for a favorable moment, and obtained permis- 
sion from her mother without more than, " You want to 
lay yourself up again, child, and to have me running up 
and down to nurse you, as if my poor bones did not 
ache enough already. " 

To do Bertha justice, she did not think going half- 



268 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

way down the street and inquiring for Beata, and per- 
haps sitting five minutes on the stool before her stove, 
was anything very meritorious. Beata was a dependant 
of the Koenigs. A family must be very poor, or very 
hard, if it does not number one dependant. What ! 
worse than Dives ; not so much as a Lazarus at the 
gate; not so much as crumbs to fling to him from a 
better-supplied table ! 

Beata, in her better days, had assisted to wash and 
clean for the Koenigs ; now she was bed-ridden ; but 
she was not in any of those abysses of destitution which 
we see out of Germany. She had been saving; she 
had able and willing kinsmen, who helped her ; and a 
very little in the cheap country sufficed to keep Beata 
tolerably comfortable on her bed. She was a patient 
old woman, and fond of old acquaintances like the 
Koenigs, particularly Bertha, who had been a white 
dove to the hard-favored, hard-working, coarsely sur- 
rounded old woman. 

In her fur cloak, and with her fur shoes and her 
warm hood, Bertha did not feel the piercing cold any 
more than in a sharp tingling, which was not unpleas- 
ant to the youthful though somewhat feeble flow of her 
blood. And how beautiful the streets were under a 
recently frozen fall of snow, for the snow comes in 
Northern Germany before the end of October. Bertha 
did not wonder that her sisters, who were strong, ran 
out and played at ball with her brothers in their half- 
hours after dinner and coffee, and even loitered and 
romped on their return beneath the stars of heaven, 
and with their own yellow, smoky stars of earth, the 



Kindliness. 269 

horn lanterns. It was little Rica's play-ground ; think 
of the hardiness of such a nursery ! Actually the little 
girl, with bare, blue-mottled arms and bare blonde 
head, was shrieking with delight as she scraped the 
snow from the door-step with her little shovel. 

Bertha liked their street at all times; admired it of a 
summer night, when the tender linden-trees among the 
houses were shaking out their heart-shaped leaves; 
when each family of the township sat on the benches 
before the doors, smoking, singing, working, drinking 
beer out of cans, or sour wine out of tall red or blue 
glasses ; when the procession of the cows came in from 
the meadows, headed by the queen with her bells, and 
each cow dropped off with a long mellow low, like a 
ship firing a signal-gun before she casts anchor, in her 
own cow-house ; and then when the buxom young men 
and women turned out in the centre of the street and 
played at games, no way removed from " Catch me if 
you can," and ■ In my castle," and " I spy," as they did 
in London in the time of Old Stowe. But, if anything, 
Bertha preferred the street in winter as it was, after she 
had chatted to Beata, and slid down her few groschen, 
and read her a loving, trusting old people's hymn out 
of her song-book, — when she returned with the setting 
sun flooding with rose-color the spire of the church, the 
churchyard with its crosses, and the roofs of the houses ; 
the rosy-red blushing over the dead, white background. 
Bertha had only once seen Schneehaufen more beauti- 
ful, and then it was with the awful beauty of fire, when 
a score of the wooden houses crackled and blazed and 
crashed in glowing ruins, lighting up the excited faces, 



270 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

the wide sky, and the whole expanse of snowy country 
far and near. 

The next day was a great day in the Kcenigs' house. 
I dare say you will laugh, and I will let you, when I tell 
you why. But for all your scornful titter, it was a brave, 
jovial day, and I have read a lyric of Uhland's, joyous, 
graphic, sensuous, if you will, but still most ringing, un- 
daunted, and thankful, which he wrote to celebrate it ; 
the swine-killing day in the German household. The 
poor swine, which ate the Kcenigs' husks, was sacrificed 
at an early hour of the morning, awakening the neigh- 
bors with its dying groans, making them move their 
heads quickly on their pillows, and murmur, enviously, 
" Ah ! the Kcenigs' swine ; what full barrels they will 
have to-day ! What roasts, and frys, and pork-pies ! 
what sausages, what cracknels ! There are so many of 
them, that they will not have a bit to spare to anybody 
besides themselves." It had been scalded and scraped, 
at least undergone processes equivalent to scalding and 
scraping, betimes, so that by breakfast it was ready for 
the great process of cutting up and laying down in 
brine, salt as the ocean. There it lay on a long board, 
stretched out, not unlike a dead gladiator, while Hen- 
Willy himself was, for that morning, engaged at home 
on business of importance, unavoidably detained from 
his store, his weights and measures. No Schneehaufen 
customer would be so inconsiderate as to enter Herr 
Kcenig's store-house, expecting to see the principal 
about Dantzic flour or Breslau cloth, on his swine- 
killing day. Herr Willy stood over the swine with a 
cleaver, prepared, as the head of the family, to assume 



Kindliness. 271 

the weighty office of breaking up and blocking out the 
carcass in presence of as many interested, competent 
witnesses as could congregate around him, and behold, 
with pride and elation, the solemn rite. For one other 
day, besides Christmas day, there was a great central 
bond of union in the Kcenig family. What was its 
weight % How many pounds of suet had it yielded % 
How many hams would be strung and hung '] Would 
the mother be able to bake out of its riches that very 
night for supper 1 ? Each eager aspirant rushed in from 
school and shop with such inquiries and walked round 
and round the dead gladiator (I protest it was rather 
unfeeling of them), down to Rica, who was shaking 
the poor limp trotters and clamoring for butter-brod. 
You may not see the point of the demand, but the 
economic Germans have three sorts of butter-brod, — 
prepared from butter proper, from hog's lard for chil- 
dren, and from — O, strong unctuous substitute ! — 
green goose-fat. 

I must say I cannot altogether sympathize with 
Bertha in her indifference, approaching to dislike, to 
the spectacle. I am not so mealy-mouthed. I think 
there was something in it not at all wire-drawn, but 
genuinely Saxon and hearty, though it partook of the 
animal no doubt. What of that 1 We are animals as 
long as we remain in the body, are we not ? Only let 
us be honest animals, like the butcher's dog, and not 
over headstrong animals like that worthy either, but 
animals and immortals as well. I dread your false sen- 
sibility ; I dread it as apt to be but a whited sepulchre, 
hiding dead men's bones and all uncleanness. 



272 Papers for Thoughtful Girls, 

Herr Willy looked manly and handsome as he bran- 
dished his shining weapon, and prepared to make in- 
cisions with the skill of an anatomist. Madam Kcenig 
was less suited to the scene, but she was earnest, quick, 
and neat-handed as Phillis herself. Here was the glit- 
tering salt ready, if not for the sacrifice, for the conse- 
cration. Here, — true Germanism, fancy in the midst 
of flesh, the simple play of fancy fearing neither logic, 
ridicule, unbelief, nor a troublesome sense of incon- 
gruity, — the crown of pale-green vine-leaves to deck 
the gaunt yet flabby head after it was roasted brown, to 
make believe that it was the head of a wild-boar slain 
after long chase, and at knightly peril in the depths of 
the forest. 

Still, Bertha hung back, and was reluctant to offer 
any assistance. What ! smear her white fingers with 
hideous stains, handle these blocks of flesh and fat, and 
bare, blue-white, exposed bone ; she would rather go 
with the dough to the oven. Still, her mother wanted 
her now if she ever wanted her at home. Much as 
Thekla and Elise would have liked to have stayed to 
assist, they could not absent themselves from their 
worsted shop. Agatha could not be spared by her 
aunt, for the court-chamberlain had arrived over-night, 
and there was enough stir in Schneehaufen without the 
killing of the Koenigs' swine to add to it : but as coffee- 
sister Korner said, " People would make a noise in the 
world by conducting their business at improper times, 
if you were soft enough to permit it. Witness the Frau 
Chorister's son, born on Easter morning, just as the 
Herr Chorister should have been lustily raising the 



Kindliness. 273 

Easter hymn, in which he quavered like a cat, and all 
but broke down ; yes, all but broke down." For Jetta, 
the servant, the true German peasant, uncouth, cum- 
brous, with her doltish, unstimulated, untrained powers, 
— no one dreamt of confiding any part of this distin- 
guished charge to her, no one expected anything from 
her but true slavish toil. Madam Kcenig would have 
liked to have done it all herself ; she was a generalis- 
simo of a little woman, who would have fought her own 
battles without soldiers, if that had been admissible y 
but Bertha saw, by the contraction of the pupils of the 
eyes, and the red spots on the thin cheeks, that her 
mother had one of her terrible headaches. It was bar- 
barous in Bertha not to interpose, though she should 
hear the waspish " Geh fort," equivalent to the Eng- 
lish " Get along, do," in return for her reluctant ad- 
vances. Yes, she thought again of the noble, loving 
Miillers, and pushed into the arena. 

" You can't, you won't," her mother interposed, but 
the words came faintly. 

After all, Bertha had no great difficulty ill assuming 
her ' post, and keeping her position ; and after the first 
shuddering attempt it was not a bad business, not a bit 
of it. She rather liked it after she had got accustomed 
to it, patting the blocks, and packing them dexterously 
(as all art-natures are dexterous when they condescend 
to a world-wide vocation) to the sound of her father's 
triumphant bravos, and to the light of her mother's half- 
swooning, but ever-vigilant eyes. For me, I like to see 
Bertha there. She seems to me like the vine-leaves, a 
link between the real and the ideal, the sensuous and 



274 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

the moral. And her heart did warm unspeakably, .just 
as I said it did after the washing of the boys ; and she 
whispered to herself, " I shall go to the Mullers, I 
feel certain of it ; and I think I shall grow worthy of 
them." 

You may say that you cannot see what good Bertha's 
superiority did to her, if it only induced her to scorn 
common people and common things, and I agree with 
you entirely. I echo, Cui bono ? As amazed and sor- 
rowful as you can be, I declare it is not a strong, pure 
good, that is thus lofty and fastidious, though I fancy it 
is often enough found in high-minded persons, particu- 
larly in their nonage, and I think for them is written in 
one sense the Apostle's recommendation, " Condescend 
to men of low estate." 

It was now All-Saints Eve, and fortunately for Bertha, 
before she had compromised herself, as she was in the 
habit of doing by gliding about or standing motionless, 
a mere ghost or statue among the others, exciting in 
turn their pity, their contempt, or their wrath, the 
remembrance forced itself upon her, that Hedwig Mul- 
ler had once been with them on this festival night 
She recollected that she had been startled to find Hed- 
wig thoroughly interested and exceedingly friendly with 
every member of the party, not only affording them 
music, but entering into their follies one after another. 
And when she had asked curiously the cause of this 
contentment, Hedwig answered with a rare smile, 
" Little Bertha, it is the motto in our house to make 
people as happy as they can be in their own way, 
unless that be a wicked way \ and, when you grow 



Kindliness. 275 

bigger and older, you will find their way is not so very 
far behind our way. My dear, there is a great deal 
that is trifling and mechanical, selfish and base, in high 
art and benevolence, and, sometimes, alas ! in our very 
worship, as long as we are in this world. These old 
traditions, and the many folk who have practised them, 
come home to me with a throng of associations ; so 
does the plucking of the petals of the corn-flower, and 
its doggerel, 

' Im Herzen, 
Mit Schmerzen, , 

and so on it goes. I am about to play it out to you, 
little Bertha, in a piece on the piano, and see if it 
will not speak to you, and see if you will not listen 
to its voice." 

Hedwig Miiller's words came rushing back to Bertha, 
as she stood playing with her gloves. You know her 
head was full of the Miillers at this time, and their sen- 
tences returned upon her memory clear and full and 
pat to the subjects which they had commemorated. 
She was glad that she had recalled them in time, for 
she would have been sorry if they had revived in her 
mind, and reproached her when All-Saints Eve party 
was over. It was not of very much moment to the 
others, probably; but she would try, at least, to be 
companionable. That night, she was surprised to dis- 
cover of how much moment it was ; how much a dis- 
engaged obliging person is always in request ; how she 
could protect the man with the lead ; how her sugges- 
tions that the solid cakes and silvery feathers in the 
water indicated merchants' bales in the city, and trees 



276 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

in the backwoods, were received with rounds of accla- 
mation, after the preceding stereotyped visions. It 
ended with Rica, — who, on ordinary occasions, was 
fonder of being with her bouncing brothers and sisters, 
though they shook her off, or made game of her, or 
boxed her ears, than with soft, careless Bertha, — now 
clasping Bertha's hand, standing on tiptoe, and, in a 
childish lisp, begging her to read her little fortune, 
with an importunity and single-heartedness and bold 
lovingness which went to Bertha's heart, thrilled her, 
and nearly provoked her to commit the enormity of 
kissing the child passionately, with tears swimming in 
her eyes. 

" How flushed and smiling Bertha looks to-night ! 
How engrossed she is with the others, and with little 
Rica," whispered Herr Kcenig to his wife, on the sofa 
behind the young people. " Don't you think Bertha is 
like an angel to-night ] " 

" An angel, humph ! a pale girl, with blonde hair 
not half plaited. I wish she would take a lesson from 
Thekla ; you cannot know Thekla's braid from a plaited 
ribbon, and no thanks to her for it, when she took the 
whole afternoon since she left the shop to do it, and 
left me to burn my face preparing the coffee, and tak- 
ing the biscuits out of the oven. There, Rica's feet 
are on Bertha's skirt again, I hear it tear where I sit, 
and who is likely to have it to mend, I should like 
to know % and I, with half of the children's winter 
clothes to make, and your cloak to turn, Wilhelm, and 
your — " 

But Wilhelm bolted, like a younger man, beyond 



Kindliness. 277 

the discussion of further repairs on his wardrobe, and 
the obligation he owed to his wife's exertions for exe- 
cuting them. 

Bertha had heard her father's whisper, but had not 
listened to her mother's comment ; indeed, her sensitive 
heart was beating so quickly that she could not listen to 
it. An angel in the house ! she had thought of that 
before, perhaps, she had been an angel in her feeble, 
girlish fashion, folding her white wings of prayer many 
a night over her father and his family. But an angel 
of service, an angel in her own person, an angel always 
by their side, always working for them and doing them 
good, though it were grain by grain and drop by drop, 
— that was noble, beautiful, exalting, that was being 
like the Miillers without travelling to the great city for 
it. She thought less of the Miillers to-night, less of 
Rudolph's poetry, and Hedwig's music, and the whole 
house's reverence and beneficence ; she thought more 
of being good and doing good, proving a blessing on 
every day, on swine-killing day, and amidst the gambols 
of All-Hallow Eve, — in what must, after all, be her 
abiding-place, home. 

Bertha felt, as she performed the only rite of All-Hal- 
low Eve which she really liked, — placing in water the 
boughs of the cherry-tree, to be budded and blossomed 
like Aaron's rod by Christmas Eve, — that there was a 
star in the east rising for her also, to travel on before 
her steps to her dying day ; she felt a cool, gentle hand 
laid on her head and her heart, allaying and quieting 
their fever, their unrest, healing all their wounds, giving 
them "love, joy, peace," never to grow: dim, never to 
fade away. 



278 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

The first thing that Bertha heard next morning, on 
the day of All Saints, when she entered the family- 
room, were these words from her father, who had a 
letter open on the table before him, — " Your uncle 
won't have you, little Bertha ; he has business at Leip- 
sic, and is going to take his family there for a time \ it 
has altered his plans. We will be obliged to keep you 
ourselves for the Christmas-tree, and the Nurnberg eggs, 
and St. Sylvester's night, and the cotillons \ you won't 
be sorry for that, my Bertha % " 

Herr Willy could not think of a kinder way of putting 
the disappointment \ and when, darting a cursory glance 
at Bertha's face, he saw no shower, and no storm, he 
fancied, simple man, that no harm had been done, be- 
cause in that original household, among those indepen- 
dent children, he was accustomed to furious sobbings 
and scoldings. 

Did you ever feel as if you had got wings somehow, 
and were flying easily and divinely above the world, 
when all at once the machinery failed, and you came 
down with a cruel thump in the mire or the dust-heap % 

Bertha had this sensation. She was at once stunned 
into an outward stoniness, and inwardly probed to the 
quick. She saw how much she had been bent on going 
to Pastor Muller's, she felt all that the hope had been to 
her ; and it seemed hard to her that it should not be. 
She had been so good lately, she had been so willing to 
prepare herself for the privilege, so sure of being bene- 
fited by it, she had been so happy in the expectation, so 
happy and so good, only last night, that the bitter cross 
of this morning sounded like a taunting reproach uttered 



Kindliness. 279 

against her and her vows. Her sisters were not thus 
balked ; they had their sledging parties, their dances : 
her brothers had their schools, and businesses, and 
boyish exploits ; she alone was to be thus beaten and 
starved, and that because she desired better and loftier 
things. Her brothers and sisters were not purer, wor- 
thier, — it were hypocrisy to pretend to think so ; she 
did not fall into such rages, she was not so self-willed, 
so forward, so crafty. Had it not been happier for her 
to grind and grovel, even like poor Jetta herself i Was 
she not marked out for misfortune, because she longed 
after excellence and heavenly-mindedness 1 Was not 
the very opportunity of growing wise and saintly denied 
her ] And she must go back to the dusty, beaten track, 
to the rough, coarse brothers and sisters, the sour moth- 
er, the light-hearted father. No listening to Cousin 
Rudolph's poetry now, no hearkening to Cousin Hed- 
wig's music, no initiating, by Pastor Muller himself, into 
exercises of charity and mercy. Bertha's family had 
their delights in lavish abundance. What had Bertha ] 
Nothing, save the flowers, the winter landscape, her 
books and prayers, her struggles after a higher life 
destined to perish, doomed to prove her bane. 

Forgive poor Bertha, for she was mad, as we all are 
when we rebel ; mad and ungrateful, leaving out many 
counts in her reckoning,— her God and Lord, his beau- 
tiful world here, his glorious heaven hereafter ; her kin- 
dred, faithful though uncongenial ; her poet friends, 
whom she knew in spirit, whom she would know in 
another and a truer day, even as she was known 5 her 
faculties of body and soul. Blind, angry, smarting 



280 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

Bertha, forgive her, if ever you have been so mad, so 
ungrateful yourself. 

Beitha was forced, like the rest of the world, to stifle 
her pains, and sit in the family-room at work upon some 
of the endless German enterprises in knitting and em- 
broidery. Then her father spoke to her in his waggish, 
roguish way, standing, as he had done one day before, 
striking chords on the piano, — " Peter is getting on 
with his choral hymn ; I must find him that Nurnberg 

egg-" 

Bertha put her hand to her head ; why did she feel 
as if she had received another blow, a blow, however, 
rather rousing and quickening this time ! O self-de- 
luded soul, what had she wanted but a Nurnberg egg 
for her duty ! Her father had been honest and hardy, 
and, by comparison, harmless in his bribe, while she 
had been double-dealing and subtle in her bargain ; 
she had required the Mlillers and the city for her re- 
ward ; she had named her payment, and demanded it, 
dollar and groschen. Soon she would have been ask- 
ing Heaven for her wages. Bertha was very penitent, 
but she was comforted too, poor soul, for her loss ; she 
thought tenderly and tearfully of the vision of Schiller, 
whom people call unconsciously Christian in his chiv- 
alry and in his paganism. She thought of the poet's 
plea to Jove, when king and trader, husbandman and 
abbot, had forestalled him, and robbed him of land and 
sea, bread and wine. Great Jove gave nothing back, 
only, in atonement, he granted one grace to the poor 
son of the muses. " Heaven is always open to thee, 
come and dwell with me whenever thou wilt," and the 



Kindliness. 281 

poet was resigned, was blest. Should the Christian 
maiden be meaner and duller than the heathen poet % 
Could her Bible, illumined by Heaven's own rays, tell 
her no nobler, sweeter tale than Schiller's lyric ] Bertha 
pleaded that she might ever more and more remember 
the injunction, "Be ye kind one to another, tender- 
hearted, forgiving one another," and that for no end, 
however specious, for no purpose, however lawful, only 
for boundless goodness, and to hasten the heaven which 
is coming fast. 





XI. 



FASHION. 




HE customs of society in Christian countries, 
if not altogether just and good, are generally 
moderately commendable. Communities, 
even in heathen times, seem to have been 
endowed with the faculty of deciding, candidly and 
creditably enough for the masses, if they could only 
have adhered to their decisions. Therefore, to act in 
violent contradiction to established laws and prece- 
dents, to set at defiance the fashion alike of time and 
place, is not, unless in a case of strict necessity, a wise, 
far less a modest proceeding. It is particularly sense- 
less and aggravating in women, whose power, like that 
of the old Roman tribunes, is that of quiet, steady 
vetos. But the sinners in this respect are compara- 
tively few and far between ; and they are those to whom 
arguments on moderation, the relative importance and 
non-importance of great things and small, the advantage 
of open-hearted concessions and good-tempered submis- 
sions, would mostly savor of lukewarmness. On the 
contrary, the stumblers from the offence of fashion are 
legion. 



Fashion. 283 

The amount of activity misdirected, time and means 
wasted, tempers spoiled, and sources of usefulness lost 
by fashion, is so enormous, that it would be ludicrous, 
if it were not lamentable. Remember, I do not refer 
to women of high rank, whose responsibilities are on an 
exaggerated scale, but to the women of the middle class, 
who are bond-slaves to this shifting, intangible, potent, 
system and power. So wedded are they to the bond- 
age, that there is not a point on which the writer has 
approached the reader with such a hopelessness akin to 
despair, — only Christians have no warrant to despair. 

To name the degree of absurdity and error to which 
fashion carries the women who are not steeled against 
it in every light, would fill, not a paper, but a volume. 
And, with regard to the women of the middle rank, 
there is one light in which fashion seizes them with 
an engrossing supremacy which it does not affect in 
the case of women of wealth and station. It robs my 
lady flagrantly of her money, and incidentally of her 
health and peace; but, from my plain though pre- 
tentious mistress it pilfers in addition, without scruple, 
both her time and her talents. The hours she spends 
in contriving ; the cleverness she unfolds in bringing to* 
bear; the fortitude she evinces in enduring counter- 
checks; the self-denial; the toil she undertakes for such 
a wearing out, fickle, ungrateful idol, would be incredible, 
were it not proved by a multitude of cases every day. 
The labor of a working-man, a slave, a pack-horse, is 
not greater, by comparison, than the groaning efforts, 
the address, the stoicism, of a poor woman running after 
fashion, keeping up appearances, or rather deluding 



284 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

herself and her neighbors into believing herself a fine 
lady, and her family a dashing, luxurious household. 
Luxurious household, indeed ! they are as far from at- 
taining to this as they are from possessing the dignity, 
repose, honest hospitality, and loyal brotherly-kindli- 
ness which were originally within their reach. 

I am anxious to state, that in these remarks I do not 
at all refer to the womanly desire to have all things at 
home, furniture and apparel, nice and pleasant • to the 
sense of the beautiful and the graceful, which cultivation 
supplies; to the tender pains, the genial, joint efforts by 
which family life is unspeakably gladdened and bright- 
ened \ to the trouble and energy by which a frugal 
mother has her children respectable, neat, smart. No, 
no ; these are the sweet blossomings over of truth, 
affection, self-respect, and faithful regard for kindred. 
What I inveigh against is the senseless waste, the taste- 
less, vain show, the pinching behind backs, and the 
profusion before faces, which has no husband's comfort, 
no child's happiness, no brother's or sister's enjoyment 
as its object, — whose beginning and end are in pride 
and vanity, and whose fruit is unneighborly strife in the 
race of extravagance and ruin. Even when there is a 
little sense to hold back in time from this common con- 
clusion, such lives are fertile in falsehood, deceit, un- 
lovely calculations and speculations, and barren in all 
nobleness, gentleness, and generosity. 

In the case of girls, the stumbling-block of fashion 
scarcely extends yet to having houses like the squire's, 
if not the lord duke's or to dispensing dinners like the 
Lord Mayor's feasts, or, more properly, like the so-called 



Fashion. 285 

recherche banquets where every dish has a French name, 
and much stress is put on the e?itremets, and the bouquet 
of the wines, such as we read of in fashionable novels. 
What principally concerns girls is fashion in dress, and 
in spending their time, especially the early portion of 
their day, which is peculiarly their own. 

Dress might have a long homily, and yet a few sen- 
tences may sum it up. Much must be left to individual 
circumstances and tastes. Dress within your means, 
handsomely if you will, becomingly if you can. Dress 
affectionately (I cannot think of a recommendation 
which can render dress more productive of real, per- 
manent pleasure), to gratify papa and mamma,- — with 
a lingering adhesion to some rather worn-out, rather 
exploded article of attire, because it was Mary's or 
Willie's thoughtful gift ! Ah, yes, there is much more 
sentiment in many a faded shawl or old-fashioned gown 
than in the newest, glossiest, most elegant, most grace- 
ful, and captivating acquisition to the toilette, fresh 
from the show-room of Madame Duval herself. 

Dress as you choose, if you will but attend to the 
following restrictions. Do not give to dress more than 
a modest portion of your hours and ideas. Do not 
bestow upon it all, or all save a fraction, of any allow- 
ance of pocket-money which you may obtain, so that 
you have next to nothing for works of affection, benevo- 
lence, and charity, and are ashamed to give such a 
veritable widow's mite out of what was originally much 
more than the widow's store. I would ask you some 
quiet Sunday evening, some day when you are recover- 
ing from sickness, some still hour succeeding the pal- 



286 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

pitation of great joy or great sorrow, if these are not 
habits of self-indulgence unbecoming a Christian girl, 
— if, while you were by no means dressed like a fright, 
a Quakeress, or a nun, you might not at the same time 
have been simple and economical % 

Do not be feverishly anxious to be more " stylish " 
than your companions, and feverishly elated when you 
attain your end. " Stylish " has replaced our old word 
" genteel," and I doubt if it is much to our advantage. 
I have heard " stylish " used by pure, sweet, sensible 
lips, when it did not sound amiss ; but if it ordinarily 
means to be out of your rank in costume, or so con- 
spicuous and singular in the shape and trimming of 
your wearing apparel as to cause people to gape and 
stare when they encounter you in the streets or in so- 
ciety, then stylishness is simply very bad taste. What- 
ever is unsuitable to your station, offends the judgment, 
and the judgment guides every eye but the eye of a 
fool. To be notorious for the cut and color of your 
garments has been in every age the temporary ebulli- 
tion of eccentricity, or the sign of a weak, low, or giddy 
mind. 

If, again, stylishness in its better sense merely indi- 
cates a craving after personal distinction, you are 
surely old enough to observe that this peculiarity, like 
beauty, is a gift, a grand, attractive gift ; but no more 
to be won by you in its details (the bend of the head, 
the inclination of the shoulders, the freedom and elas- 
ticity of motion, which lends such a fascination to the 
bonnet, such a charm to the folds of the mantle, such a 
something unsurpassable even to the sweep of the skirts) 



Fashion. 287 

than are the pearly skin, the rose-leaf bloom, or the 
Grecian, Roman, or clear composite Saxon features 
which have not been granted to you. If you do pos- 
sess them, they need little embellishment ; if you do 
not possess them, why hanker after them in your silli- 
ness, now that you have given up the paint-pot with 
which your ancestresses, in the reigns of Anne and the 
first Georges, daubed their sallow cheeks " a fine red " ] 
Renounce also the peacock's feathers, which will not 
transform you, my poor jay ! which will only render 
you ridiculous, and exhaust your capacity for a thou- 
sand other enjoyments. Rise up in your native dig- 
nity, equal and sometimes superior to my lady swim- 
ming or tripping along. Love to contemplate my lady 
in nature with an honest, unenvious admiration, and 
love to regard her also in art from the brush of Sir 
Joshua Gainsborough or Sir Henry Lawrence. But 
whether you are dumpy or a scarecrow, be so without a 
sigh ; there is something as good if not better for you ; 
yield my lady her sphere, and assume your own, — be 
sure it exists for you somewhere, if you will only have 
the patience to hunt about for it, or quietly await it. 
This attempt to be all equally elegant and graceful, 
and not what many of us must be content to remain, 
merely unobtrusive, unassuming persons, is a mono- 
mania among women. 

With regard to the fashionable waste of time, perhaps 
the abuse exists most notoriously in towns and great 
towns. There, no one can pass along the streets on 
business or pleasure without being struck with the 
crowds of young girls who are promenading neither 



288 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

for the one purpose nor the other. No one can enter 
a public exhibition without being harassed, wellnigh 
persecuted, by the multitude of idle women, who are 
there openly and ostensibly to see and be seen ; to 
meet their acquaintances ; to lounge, lunch, gossip, and 
to do anything but look at the pictures, or suffer others 
to look at them. One might be driven to desire that 
societies should make a little sacrifice, and inscribe 
over their doors, " Only for the lovers of art and 
science ; no loud greetings, no standing about, or 
planting of bodies for hours on convenient benches ; no 
continuous chatter allowed." 

This is only the public side of the nuisance. How 
many daily inflictions there are in the shape of dawdling 
visits, where there is nothing to say, nothing to hear, 
and where the outward presence is a mere pernicious 
habit, we dare not attempt to register. 

Now, there is no cause for this idle expenditure of 
time, for really, in consequence of it, days and weeks 
slip from you in the most unprofitable manner imagin- 
able ; you know not how ; and if you are not vivacious, 
you get into such an indolent habit of sailing with the 
stream, that you lose all independence and originality 
of character. If you have performed the duties, devel- 
oped the talents, cultivated the cheap, blithe pleasures 
we were describing, you have no such superabundant 
leisure to throw away. Remember, though your boun- 
ful Father allows you a million of innocent enjoyments 
and delights, to wanton trifling you are not free. It is 
demoralizing, and it is destructive ; it saps your ear- 
nestness, and it spends your strength for naught. For 



Fashion. 289 

" every idle word," you will have to give account ; 
that is very solemn. Do not let it frighten you from 
your innocent joyousness ; but do let it check you from 
a deliberate waste of many hours every day in unmean- 
ing gadding, and loitering here and there and every- 
where but at home. Of course, if you follow such 
pursuits with other motives and purposes, at the request 
of parents, for the benefit of friends, the case is alto- 
gether different. It must be very worthless company, 
indeed, which a good intent does not justify and en- 
noble. But, speaking of the practice in its purely primi- 
tive aspect, I would warn you against it. It is no reason 
why you should gad, that it is the fashion ; it is very 
little excuse for your frivolity, that other girls are not 
sensible and serious at proper times. Do you set the 
example, and act like the little boy at Rugby, who said 
his morning prayers, though the other boys shied boots 
at his head. Who can tell whether your companions 
will not be drawn by your courage and wisdom, until 
gadding and dawdling and dropping in upon each other 
at all hours, without sound friendship, without strong 
sympathy, without anything but vacuity of heart and 
brain, will be the exception instead of the rule ? 

No doubt, there may be great idleness at home and 
in retirement ; great pecking, like a bird, at a thousand 
occupations, but an applying of ourselves to none of 
them. We all know the process, — trying over this 
piece of music, putting a stitch into that bit of work, 
interfering for a moment with the cook or the house- 
maid without affording either any available assistance, 
— plenty of this, but nothing like business or steady 
13 s 



290 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

work during the whole morning, and that for morning 
after morning. Still there can be little question that 
the temptation to dissipation is far less at home than 
abroad ; and in the first half-dozen of these papers, I 
have wished to offer, to any who will use them, sugges- 
tions, which may help them to avoid this shallow, su- 
perficial course, and to adopt another walk, — that of 
being in earnest in all their ways. 



FRENCH DOLLS. 

IT was bondage, the life which Fanchon and Aimee 
Le Brun led. If they had not been brave girls, they 
could not have borne it ; if it had not been a question 
of fashion, and French fashion, they would have needed 
to have been the noblest of the noble, to have fought it 
out. They were not very noble, poor things, only lively, 
courageous Frenchwomen, with sallow skins, black 
eyes, irregular features, mobile faces, altogether a little 
monkey-like sometimes, but very merry, as the monkey 
is when it chatters over its nuts, and faithful as the 
monkey can be to its monkey ties. I like them better 
than the lackadaisical, theatrical Frenchwoman, with 
her sentiment and her guile ; though, unquestionably, I 
much prefer the noble Frenchwoman, like Madame 
Roland, the tender-hearted Frenchwoman, like Ma- 
dame de Se'vigne', or the devoted Frenchwoman, like 
Madame de la Rochejaquelin, to either. They were 
open, like children, in their mischief, and their inge- 
nuity was very like the ingenuity of children. You 



Fashion. 291 

must not suppose they were stupid or slow ; they were 
very clever, very quick. I wish you had seen them 
dressed for an evening party; I wish you had heard 
them during that " evening. " They lived during the 
old regime, about the beginning of the terrible regime of 
the Nineties, in Paris. Their father was a colonel in 
the army, of good family, and with a handsome pen- 
sion j but, for some reason or other, he kept his family 
bare of money. Their mother was dead, and their 
aunt took them into society, tolerably high society of 
the time, where Fanchon and Aimee were well received, 
though they were not yet promised in marriage, not- 
withstanding it was supposed they would have fair dow- 
eries for Frenchwomen. Perhaps this comfortable view 
of the case tended to make Fanchon and Aime'e break 
bounds. Their aunt always thought they did her great 
credit. Her only grief about her charges was that they 
had no conventual stillness about them ; they were not 
retiring and mute, as young girls should be. They 
spoke and laughed almost like married women. After 
all, these dreadful Nineties shook the proprieties of 
Frenchwomen ; the excitement pervading all classes, 
the general interest of the questions mooted, the cloud 
hanging luridly and heavily over the country, until it 
caught the most careless eyes, rendered the Frenchwo- 
men of the Nineties a different order of Frenchwomen 
from any that went before or came after them. 

But it was only the beginning of the time, and the 
Le Bruns were no great politicians; they only knew 
enough of the raging, conflicting currents of the day 
to be aware that it required exquisite tact, a kind of 



292 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

second instinct, fine, shrewd, and chameleon-like, to 
encounter them successfully ; and they did so encoun- 
ter them with their light heads and barren experiences. 
You may think that it was heartless even in the young 
Le Bruns to be so little affected by the straits of the 
people, the peril of kings, that they should dance on in 
the salons after they had seen that ghastliest dance of 
the people in the streets; but remember when Troy 
was on the eve of falling, there was only Cassandra 
among the Trojan maids who refused to dance and 
sing, and Cassandra was a prophetess. Remember, if 
you live in such times, you acquire only a confused 
perception of them. Party prejudices and partialities 
and self-interests bewilder great and honest statesmen, 
not to say flighty young girls. It is a vastly different 
thing to stand and look back on history, and to live 
that history. Besides, candidly now, who are the peo- 
ple who care to lose their heads and break their hearts 
for the wants of the poor, the sorrows of the mighty I 
With a few honorable exceptions, you will not find 
them among " the garden of girls," and no blame to 
them. In general, their brains are soft, their hearts are 
soft, their very thews and sinews are soft, they are 
opening their eyes like kittens on this wonderful world. 
Themselves and their friends occupying their fore- 
ground, how can you expect them to reach the back- 
ground immediately, or to take the whole creation into 
their canvas at once ! 

Fanchon and Aime'e had enough to do, as they un- 
derstood life. I have told you that they moved in high 
society, and that their father allowed them but a limited 



Fashion. 293 

portion of his income, and the times were frightfully 
dear for young ladies in society, as well as for work- 
men's wives clamoring for bread. You will remind me 
that the French, with excellent taste, cause their young 
girls to appear simply clad ; but I doubt if this was so 
much the case before the Revolution as after it ; and 
the simplicity of the upper classes is never perfectly 
lost to expense, it is a kind of French-shepherdess sim- 
plicity, — the perfection of art, very difficult to attain, 
and often in its details quite costly to small purses. 
You have often enough heard of making a great show 
on small means ; that was what Fanchon and Aimee 
had to do when most girls only wore their clothes, and 
never troubled themselves how they were bought ; 
smelt their bouquets, and never hunted Covent Garden 
to get a rose at half-price. Fanchon and Aimee first 
toiled for their splendor, and then sported it ; a second 
toil, and rather an oppressive and dangerous one on the 
verge of a French revolution. 

It is remarkable what a sense of praiseworthiness 
attaches to this doubtful virtue of making a great show 
on small means. Stern moralists denounce it, but stern 
moralists are not the voice of the public ; and, O the 
good women and true I have heard commend, applaud, 
and take it to their hearts ! " How very well-doing in 
them, poor things, to make one shilling look like two ! 
how creditable it is in them to contrive to present such 
a respectable appearance ! what excellent wives they 
will make ! " The whole of this is neither more nor 
less than a cheat. 

I don't pretend to be better than my neighbors. I 



294 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

am sensible I listen with an immoral animation to the 
shifts which Fanchon and Aimee have made for their 
bravery \ I look with an immoral pride on my black- 
eyed girls, so full of grace and espieglerie, and with so 
elegant a tournnre in their gauze trains, which cost, I 
dare not say, how little a yard ; and their fans, which 
are only painted pasteboard \ and their powder, which 
is the coarsest of flour. I feel ashamed of myself, an- 
gry with myself, until I reflect it is the qualities I 
hanker after, and not the ends ; that in theory I hate 
laziness, vacuity, sloth, supineness \ that I love my 
French puppets for their energy, ready resource, untir- 
ing industry, and forget that they are but dolls after all, 
— sprightly dolls, it may be, but dolls, moving smartly 
to the artificial springs of the opinions of society, and 
the customs of fashion. 

It was hard work with Fanchon and Aime'e. Often 
they sat in a back room all day, sewing like the veriest 
drudges of seamstresses, and never receiving a penny 
for their labor ; giving out rather the few pennies they 
possessed. When the Colonel was abroad, they fasted 
as religiously as on Friday. I declare to you, these 
young, growing, hungry girls were sometimes giddy 
from insufficient or improper food, and often experi- 
enced violent nervous headaches from the same cause ; 
and this they endured that they might procure sandals 
from the royal Marie Antoinette's boot-maker ! They 
would traverse the whole disorderly city, under the care 
of the old porteress, with thick veils over their hats, 
choking for breath, and ready to sink on the trottoir 
with fatigue, for the cheapest set of Roman pearls, when 



Fashion. 295 

everything Roman was coming into vogue. Worse 
than that, the girls were shabby in their remuneration 
of the old porteress ; who had no longer the wages of 
her husband and sons, as they deserted their trades to 
watch with haggard, fierce faces at the doors of the 
clubs, and obtain, second-hand, the wild eloquence, 
which they drank in like a dram of fiery cognac. Fan- 
chon or Aimee would endow her with a fragment of 
sodden galette, a jar of fermented confiture, a spangled, 
cast-off scarf or apron, of no use whatever to the poor 
woman, unless she were willing to foot Paris, city and 
faubourgs, bridges and ruelles, a second time, to dispose 
of it to the smallest profit. This was not because Fan- 
chon and Aimee were naturally grasping and covetous. 
They were good-natured and kindly, but they drove 
such hard bargains themselves, they travelled such 
weary roads often, they ate such inferior galette and 
thin confiture with sharp appetites, that broken victuals, 
and cast-off clothes magnified themselves in their im- 
aginations, and became quite good enough for Mere 
Coralie. If you would seek out those who are the 
hardest of the hard to dependants, and that often 
without the most distant consciousness of the fact, 
you will find them among the suffering bond-slaves of 
fashion, the poor, laboring men and women, who would 
fain make ropes out of sand, — a great show on small 
means. 

Many a time Fanchon and Aimee were cruelly disap- 
pointed, cheerful as they were by constitution. They 
would go out in their hard-won, though flimsy company- 
dresses, and an insipid heiress from the provinces, a 



296 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

dashing prononcee dame, with a sullied reputation (poor 
thing, poor thing, speak gently of her, all her stains 
were washed out in the blood-pool beneath the guillo- 
tine), far, far outshone them. They grew so desperate 
in their race after costume and style, that they lost 
sight of their own crystal ornaments of grisette gayety, 
they would let themselves be extinguished by such tri- 
fling advantages as Mademoiselle Be'rille's white crape, 
and Madame de Biron's amazonian girdle. They would 
sit discomfited and heart-broken, unless they happened 
to be placed between a royalist banker and a republican 
journalist, each an unexceptionable parti, and found 
themselves imperatively called upon to conduct a light, 
airy conversation so as to please both of them. Many 
a time they returned home spent with exertion unre- 
warded, and vexation unalloyed by the gentle consola- 
tions of gentler minds. 

I dare say you judge Fanchon and Aimee very frivo- 
lous, and so they were, but, before you condemn them, 
consider their rearing, their atmosphere. These don't 
alter sin, but they alter our estimation of the sinner. I 
repeat, in their defence, some of my dolls' virtues. 
They were obedient without a question of so much as 
disaffection, they were very industrious, they were fond 
of each other and of Monsieur le Colonel, — of him in 
a respectful mode, of each other in a brisk, transparent 
way. They were, as I have said before, candid for 
French girls, and they were, being young girls, inno- 
cent. They were punctual in their Roman Catholic 
observances, intending, without any sense of strange 
presumption and fraud, to become devout in their 
old age. 



Fashion. 297 

So it was with their father. It is a fashion of our day 
to laugh at those old Bourbon officers, as we laugh at 
everything ; but when they came to England in shoals 
of emigres, they were admired by a foreign and hostile 
people, and with reason, for their fortitude, their pa- 
tience, their unobtrusive manliness, their unshrinking, 
unremitting efforts at sustaining their poor broken lives. 
They were admired also, no doubt, for what was better 
understood, — their grand air, their lively gestures, their 
nimble dancing. 

Monsieur le Brun, in his young days or in his old 
days, if the last had been less tottering and precarious, 
might have been arrogant, selfish, cruel ; but the dread- 
ful times in which he lived had sobered him. He was 
quiet and tolerant ; he lived at a great distance from 
his children, certainly ; he thought of them as babies, 
girls, women, in his pitying, half-chivalrous, half-con- 
temptuous fashion ; but he cared for them. Monsieur 
le Brun was wary ; he foresaw the storm impending, in 
which the sword he had used so gallantly once on a 
day could not save him any longer. He tried hard to 
lay by a provision for a rainy day. He was not so 
fortunate in securing his funds, as in saving the lives of 
his family. The thunderbolt burst an hour too soon. 
Monsieur's store was so far safe, that it was regained by 
his grandchildren ; but it was never out of France ; not 
a franc of it was fingered by himself in his adversity. 
What of that ? They must fly — all the same — for life 
and liberty ; and thrice happy they who escaped with 
them. What was beginning the world anew among the 
cold looks of strangers, to remaining in that city of 
13* 



298 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

destruction % It was a small consideration that the 
fugitives were, many of them, up in years ; and that 
the obscure by-paths in which they now sought fortune, 
and the aching joints and sweating brows which the 
pursuit brought them, had been unknown in their youth 
and prime. If their hearts failed them, yonder across 
the channel was a hecatomb of slaughtered dead to 
scare them with horror, when it did not fire them with 
fury. But they were Frenchmen ; they were philoso- 
phers ; they would bear their misfortunes even jauntily ; 
they would scrape together the means of existence ; 
they would make bold strokes, not for wives, but for 
mouthfuls of vegetables and cups of coffee ; they would 
live where an Englishman would starve, and pick up 
their corn among his unobservant, stiff, clumsy feet. 

Fanchon and Aime'e had known little more of the 
coming desolation ; they had grown used to conventions 
and national guards. They had been out dancing at 
an assembly, and there was nofureur among the guests 
that they had seen ; no barricades in the streets, no 
blood on the hands of the citizens. But when they 
returned home, Monsieur le Brun was waiting for them; 
he showed the astonished girls passports; he bade them 
put on their plainest clothes for a long journey; he in- 
formed them that a carriage, which would pass through 
the nearest gates and join a diligence, would be at the 
door within an hour. 

But their aunt, their friends, their engagements, their 
malles ; how could they possibly pack up their malles 
within an hour? Monsieur was imperturbable. Perhaps 
he had already heard of Marie Antoinette and her neces- 



Fashion. 299 

saire, which cost her so dear. The girls submitted, as 
only French girls would do, and collected more trash of 
valuables within the hour than any but Frenchwomen 
could accomplish. I dare say they spent their time 
upon that, rather than visiting every corner of the old 
house in the Rue Rivoli, and kissing and crying over 
the porteress. The inexorable Colonel, trained to mili- 
tary lightness of baggage, threw out all their bundles 
before he stepped into the fiacre • still the girls only 
clasped their hands, and raised their black eyes, and 
marvelled and schemed how they were to obtain new 
necklaces. 

A hurried, dismal journey to the coast, a huddled-to- 
gether, rough, wretched passage from port to port, and 
very cheap lodgings high in the air, somewhere near 
Covent Garden, were the next stages in the story of my 
poor dolls. There they lived for a while, depending on 
Monsieur's lessons in languages. Their life was not so 
different from their former one, except that it wanted all 
the sauce and spice. They moiled with the farthings 
of Monsieur's earnings to keep up the faint copies of 
their elaborate toilettes. When the weather was very 
fine, and their cheap toilettes especially effective, they 
walked in Kensington Gardens and the parks, and were 
brushed by the rich skirts of the English ladies, and 
occasionally bespattered by the riders. They had al- 
ways the French chapel, where they encountered a few 
well-known faces whom they could not afford to enter- 
tain at close quarters, and who, as they well knew, were 
making as frantic efforts as they were themselves to 
preserve their soiled gold-lace, their threadbare cloth 



300 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

and embroidery. There they whispered to each other 
real tragedies, and surely worshipped with more fervor 
in their extremity. 

It was a sad, aimless mockery of a life, and the girls 
could not avoid perceiving how wrecked it was. Then 
they would exclaim in their liquid French, and cry 
their bright black eyes as dim as such eyes could be- 
come. 

One cold, chill winter day, the Colonel was pros- 
trated by rheumatism ; he rose, but could not stand ; 
he tried to lift his hand to his head, but failed, with 
the arm so racked by pain that it was incapable of 
any other activity. The exposures of his old campaigns 
were telling upon him, now that his pension was for- 
feited. 

The girls did not look at each other, and fold their 
hands \ they were not like dolls at this crisis. 

" Fanchon, it is necessary that we work for ourselves 
and our father." 

" Yes, Aimee, let us begin. What will you that we 
try J " 

They never hesitated. The doctor was impressed 
and edified by the resignation with which they listened 
to his cautious warnings of how little poor Monsieur's 
powers could be depended upon in the future, and with 
the alacrity with which they set about their search for 
employment. Even Monsieur was not prostrated in 
mind by the prostration of his body. He had treated 
his daughters as dolls, still more than I have done, but 
he never seemed to doubt that they would come for- 
ward as very useful dolls when the occasion demanded 
it of them. 



Fashion. 301 

Fanchon and Aimee laid their heads together on 
their qualifications, — their stock in trade. Of all tak- 
ings of stock, this is perhaps the one usually involving 
the most trepidation, the most cowardly palpitations, 
and desperately faint hearts. But the French girls did 
it coolly. They thought of dancing, giving lessons in 
dancing to schools and private families. They had not 
interest and accomplishments for the stage, or I don't 
think they would have repudiated it. They had to give 
up the idea of dancing. At that era every pension 
required an Adonis, in knee-breeches and buckles, to 
preside over the Terpsichore ; the market was glutted, 
and the yellow, grinning marquises, barons, and counts 
had the best of it. Then they thought of artificial 
flower-making, which they had learnt in their convent- 
parlor, and prosecuted for their own convenience. Here 
they were likely to be more successful ; and a very little 
capital provided the cambric, the vermilion, the ultra- 
marine, the jonquil yellow, the wire, and the gum. 
How skilfully and rapidly the girls manufactured their 
wares ! What bunches of jasmine, what pink and white 
lilies (being French, they did not confine themselves to 
white lilies ; pink lilies were charmants^ ravissants, and 
so they proceeded boldly to their construction), and 
such French, such very French forget-me-nots. When 
they had completed their performances, they disposed 
of them to the shops themselves quite easily and safely. 
They were accustomed to shopping ; and the linen- 
drapers, milliners, dressmakers, liked the workers, liked 
their punctuality, their self-reliance, the vivacity of their 
broken English. As for enemies, sinister patrons, these 



302 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

girls detected them at a glance and shunned them. 
They could take care of themselves, young as they 
were, as honest, fearless, alert girls can generally do. 
Monsieur, too, Monsieur had faith in them, to his 
honor as a Frenchman, or else to the honor of the 
England, the perfide Albion, in which he trusted, Mon- 
sieur relied on his girls without a qualm. The milliners 
and mantua-makers would ask Fanchon and Aimee's 
advice with regard to the disposal of the sprigs and 
wreaths, and would engage their taste and expertness 
for half-days and whole days together. They fell in 
with some of their own countrymen ; they got work to 
carry home, so they varied their trades and acquired 
double profits ; and they were so keen, so zealous, and 
withal so good-humored, they so enjoyed making money 
and handing it over to the Colonel, though they were 
not avaricious ! They had their crosses, of course ; 
crosses are not confined to ladies of fashion, but they 
did not take them half so much to heart as when they 
led a centreless, pointless whirl of a life. I dare say, 
when their French natures were tempted to long for the 
footlights, the dancing, and a more effervescent admira- 
tion than that of the honest shopkeepers, they thought 
with a shudder of the horrors that were then being 
enacted in gay distinguished France, and thanked 
Heaven for their dull, obscure banishment 

Fanchon and Aimee had no time now for their grand 
toilettes a la baronne ; their plaiting and pinching and 
curling, and rustling here and there before a little oval 
looking-glass, with only themselves to please and profit 
by their application. They sat with their crisp hair 



Fashion. 303 

twisted under their little caps, in their peignoirs. I wish 
I could say these peignoirs were as fresh and nice as 
they should have been ; but then, I have vowed to tell 
nothing but the truth, as far as my judgment goes, and 
these faded, crushed peignoirs clad young, plump, agile 
bodies, and did not offend Monsieur, since he could 
not have the floating muslin, white or rose tendre colors, 
which the French hold fittest for young girls. No ; nor 
did they offend any friend and countryman who called 
to play a game of dominoes with the Colonel, and chat 
with the girls. Dear Fanchon and Aimee began anew 
to sing their old romances and barcai'olles, and to give 
them more gleefully than in the salons of Paris. 

Fanchon and Aimee had an invitation to Richmond, 
to a party of emigres. It was one of those fete days, 
which they had been wont to respect almost as they had 
respected mass and the confessional, and it was to be 
celebrated in the country, the summer country, and the 
celebration included the company of equals, sunshine, 
talk, and laughter, and, perhaps, in conclusion, a dance 
on the green. What were not all these to the two con- 
fined, toiling work-women % 

" Yet, we cannot go," cries Fanchon ; " see, we have 
that sheaf of roses to complete ; we have promised, 
and we must not offend Monsieur, who employed us 
first." 

" But if we sit up very late," urges poor Aimee, 
plaintively ; we have no pleasure now, Fanchon ; and 
our father is so well, he could do without us for a day. 
Could we not manage it % " 

" It might have been possible, Aimee, had it not been 



304 Papers for Thoughtfod Girls. 

for our dress ; but we cannot go like work-people. We 
would need to sit up a whole night to wash and starch 
and iron our gowns and mantles, and to dye our gloves, 
ribbons, and fichus, and very triste they would appear 
when all was done, my sister." 

" I wish we could go like work-people," sighs Aime'e. 

"Impossible," replies Fanchon, with unusual tart- 
ness ; but when Aime'e repeats how well they and their 
circumstances are known among their friends ; how 
irresponsible they are for the disasters of la belle France ; 
how they could wear — what could they wear \ not the 
peignoirs, but the pretty calicoes which the worthy linen- 
draper gave them over and above their payment, and 
gypsy-hats, — " and then, do you know, Fanchon, they 
might think it was la pastorale, — that we were mas- 
querading." 

" Bah ! " exclaims Fanchon, " that deceives nobody ; 
but as you are devoured with chagrin because we miss 
the day in the country, and as it is in England, and yet 
among our own people, we may think of going en des- 
habille; but mind, Aime'e, mind we can never show our 
faces in Paris again, if it comes to be known." 

" Ah ! I will leave dear Paris to take care of itself," 
declares fickle Aime'e, and darts to the drawers to ex- 
amine the calicoes in which they are to figure perforce en 
pastorale. The girls go to their fete as simply dressed as 
hay-makers of a Sunday, but still with their nameless 
elegance and grace. They delight in the view, the 
trees, the grass, the primroses, the very singing-birds 
are novelties to them ; they delight in the most rustic 
food eaten in the rustic inn; they stroll about, and 



Fashion. 305 

exchange sparkling French witticisms and picturesque 
French sentiments. 

"And, Fanchon, how happy we have been," says 
Aimee, on her return to the garret, near Covent Gar- 
den, " as happy as if we had worn diamonds." 

"Tell that to your bridegroom, Aimee, before he fur- 
nishes your corbeille; but, after all, it is true, I never was 
happier in France ; it sounds unfaithful, but I believe it 
is because we are so occupied here, and it is so much 
more of %.fete to us now than it used to be." 

" For me, Fanchon," confesses Aimee, " I think it is 
better in itself, all except the absence from our country, 
and the misery of the Revolution, and our father's in- 
firmities. It is so pleasant this sort of society, so im- 
promptu, so easy." 

" Faineanie ! you want to go out like a school -girl 3 
you forget the bienseances, the proprietes, our rank, our 
class. Alas ! we have paid sufficiently for them, to 
prize them forever." 

Notwithstanding, Fanchon and Aimee forgot the pro- 
prietes, the bienseances, more and more, went out like 
simple maids, and did not trouble themselves to be 
belles and queens, and so had all the cream and honey 
of their entertainments so long as they tarried in Eng- 
land. 





XII. 



THE LIFE OF PRIDE AND LEVITY. 




[HERE has been always a tendency in the 
world to withdraw pride from its place among 
the deadly sins, and that in spite of direct 
denunciations against it. " Pride cometh 
before destruction." " God hateth a high look." This 
favor seems to arise from two causes. Pride itself is a 
hard, selfish, and actually mean temper in its narrow- 
ness and arrogance ; but no other disposition has such 
a faculty of clothing itself like an angel of light, putting 
on the garb and showing the features of dignity, noble- 
ness, magnanimity. For a second stronger reason, other 
qualities are habitually mistaken for pride. Shyness, 
for instance, which is often found in company with its 
opposite, humility ; self-respect, which is an honest 
man's inheritance ; independence, which is a brave 
man's portion ; bluntness, which we cannot, for the 
life of us, dissever from truth. 

Call pride insolence, whether superb or vulgar, and 
you will make no mistakes. The impatience of inter- 
ference with your plans, the loud or dogged assertion of 



The Life of Pride and Levity. 307 

your will, the slighting or sweeping condemnation of all 
beneath your sovereign notice ; these are very unlovely 
and unlovable. But this tone, like that of mock igno- 
rance of household work and rural economy, is, we are 
glad to say, much exploded with women, in so far as 
clearly-established inferiors are concerned. Few girls 
hector in a shop, or storm over a servant, before their 
associates, because they are very well aware that in so 
doing many eyes will be fixed on them in censure. 
They have learned at last that it is not like gentle- 
women to be imperious and tyrannical. Where they 
can undoubtedly command, and where they feel a 
strong call to be insolent, they are merely languid, 
supercilious, and sneering. But it is in that " debata- 
ble land " which a good, earnest writer has classed as 
" the missing link " in the social chain, that insolence 
remains rampant. Among acquaintances, a shade re- 
moved in rank and refinement, inferiors by an inappre- 
ciable degree, which no mortal would take the trouble 
to reckon, — it is towards the commonplace, the tire- 
some, the shabby, that insolence still flourishes in full 
bloom. It is by what are called " Cuts," by shades of 
cordiality, varying far more suddenly and violently than 
our weather-gauges, that simple, sincere folk are tried. 
" Really the way that girl bowed to me in the Cres- 
cent was insufferable. I can bear a good deal of non- 
sense from girls, having had girls of my own ; but for a 
child like that to think it a fit thing to recognize a staid 
old woman like me, by simply lowering her eyelids ! " 
complains the respectable mother of a family ; " and it 
was only in spring she sent her love, and could I give 



308 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

her some bramble-jam for her cold; nothing did her 
good like my bramble-jam, and I am sure I did not 
grudge it. I was delighted that she should have re- 
course to me ; but I must say I expected a little live- 
lier sense of my existence." 

" They are all the same, mother," answers a little bit- 
terly the somewhat worn eldest daughter, at the same 
time much more indignant at the slight put upon her 
mother than at any neglect to herself. " If you had 
seen how reluctant Agnes Jones was to see me to-day, 
because she was walking with the Stephensons. I shall 
be blind enough the next time I meet her, though it 
should be before her admirer, Mr. Forester, who was so 
much obliged to my brother George." 

No, no, Agnes, you will forgive and forget ; you will 
warm your sometimes weary heart by the consciousness 
that you have not done anything to spoil Agnes Jones s 
fine prospects, little as she thanks you for it ; and long 
after this small vexation is past and gone, you, who are 
so candid and loving, will understand to the full that 
verse of the psalm, " Thou hast put more joy and glad- 
ness in my cup since the time that their corn and oil 
and wine abounded." 

But in our day the life of pride, of strong, domineer- 
ing self-importance, has generally accepted also the cue 
of the life of levity, — the life which finds a joke in 
everything, which laughs at all reverence, earnestness, 
and romance. It is one of the hardest and most hostile 
aspects of the human mind which you can encounter. 
Talk to a young lady who aspires to be " fast," — who 
quotes the broadest slang, and must have "larks," if not 



The Life of Pride and Levity. 309 

" sprees," — talk of self-sacrifice, of high, pure thoughts, 
of lives happy in their holiness, and she will vote you 
" slow," shrug her shoulders, remark upon your neck- 
ribbon or your bootlace, be witty at your expense, and 
have nothing more to do with you. She may have too 
much passive principle to denominate your conversation 
humbug, but she will think you old-fashioned, prudish, 
sentimental, superannuated, officious, intrusive. She 
will jeer at you unmercifully, or be seriously incensed 
if you provoke her further. All the while she may pay 
respect to the outward forms of religion, to churches, 
prayer-meetings, Sabbath-schools, benevolent societies, 
private devotions, and far be it from me to say she is 
insincere \ but there is surely the oddest incongruity in 
her conduct. 

Now a good laugh is an excellent thing, and the most 
of us firmly credit it is enjoyed it its perfection by the 
best men and women in the world. We can set our 
seals to the description of such sick-rooms as George 
Wilson's, where the good and patient lie not only in an 
attitude of meekness and resignation, but spread around 
them a clear, sunny atmosphere of humor and fun. 
Who should be happy but those who are at peace with 
God and man 1 ? But this incapacity for viewing any- 
thing under a serious aspect, this incredulity of all high 
duty, sustained effort, generous self-abnegation, and 
growing unworldliness is, we should venture to say, very 
far from what our worthiest humorist contemplates. 

If I recollect aright, a son of Legh Richmond's spoke 
severely on his death-bed against the former merry cast 
of his conversation on all topics with a young sister. 



310 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

Reading this observation when very young, it pained 
me, and I thought it very harsh. I still regard it as 
extremely morbid. The young will gambol in mind as 
well as body. Their Maker gave them this early buoy- 
ancy, and we may well shrink from taking it from them. 
I would never object to its use, only to its abuse. I 
am aware there are some kindly spirits who retain this 
blessed buoyancy to old age. I know there are con- 
stitutions whose deep feelings almost always speak half 
jestingly, with a touch of the comic forever relieving 
the tragic side of their natures. There are those who 
would be sombre without this tendency, and whose 
sense of pathos is so quick and keen that they are glad 
to weld it with laughter, to take off, as it were, the 
piquant edge of its pitifulness, and they generally pre- 
serve the characteristic to the last. I am not sure 
whether it is not a healthful counterbalance to save 
them from moping melancholy or desperate despair. 
But this is quite another thing from that bold levity 
which regards all life as a joke, and whose desire after 
sport is as keen as any hunter's or fisher's. The zest 
with which such girls follow amusement, in the shape 
of practical jokes, and making butts of weak acquaint- 
ances, has been before now exposed. But a good girl 
will hold back from such a course ; "her delicate sense 
of honor " will prevent her from being a party to any 
modified version of the frolics which appear to form a 
distinguishing feature of some departments of her Ma- 
jesty's service. Her fuller, richer nature will reject with 
aversion the emptiness of laughter which has no strong 
background of thought and feeling. She will not live 



The Life of Pride and Levity. 311 

a life of rushing here and there, and giggling violently. 
Her quiet perception of propriety will revolt at the 
personal notoriety which captivates the other girls. For 
you will find that the great desire of the poor girl, born 
and bred to the life of pride and levity, is to make you 
stare, to confound your sober senses, to strut before 
you, to push you out of your place, to tread on your 
skirts, and finally to eclipse your view with her high, 
vain head, and to raise a noisy clamor which shall 
effectually drown all grave discussion, considerate fore- 
thought, and tender memories and anticipations. 



THE ROOMS IN THE OLD HOUSE. 

THE FIRST ROOM. 

THE house was an old London house, near the 
river. It was a house of some age at the time of 
which I write, as it showed by its wide, low doors, its 
mullioned windows, its fine oak carvings ; but it was so 
conveniently and pleasantly situated, that it continued 
a dwelling-place of the quality for several generations 
to come. The water was still the water of painted 
barges and gilded wherries. It was still the pink of 
the mode, and the delight of all delights for women 
gay, idle, and luxurious, to loll in these deep windows, 
examine the company on the river, award and appor- 
tion signals and make eyes to the rowers of their ac- 
quaintance. Occasionally the parties, engaged in this 
profitable employment, wore masks ; but they were fre- 



3 1 2 Papers for Thoughtftcl Girls. 

quently as eager to display their own persons, as to 
study those of their neighbors. 

I want to show you this house as it appeared in 166-, 
in one of its rooms overhanging the river. Among the 
women who clustered on its window-seat, were the com- 
panions of the Hamilton, the Stewart, the Carlisle ; and 
only once have a set so graceless and shameless dis- 
graced our England. Modest, true women shrink still 
from their bold brows, full lips, and wanton eyes, from 
their affectation and their voluptuousness, as they meet 
face to face their likenesses abounding in picture-gal- 
leries. There they sit, these miserable beauties of an 
English reign, the ripe fruit of pride and levity, of utter 
heartlessness, and of a far lower tone of principle than 
many an old Greek and Roman attained in his own 
wisdom, and amidst the darkness and corruption of the 
heathen world. We know the little curls plastered on 
the round ivory brows, and soft pink cheeks, and hang- 
ing thick and full in studied luxuriance on the arched 
necks ; the white arms, all bare, flung out on the win- 
dow-sill ; the costly lace floating loose from the shoul- 
ders ; the sweeping trains. How well we know them, 
and how little we like them ! Who would seek such 
women as these for wives and mothers ? Who would 
not recoil from intimate communion with their base 
beauty, as from the dead whiteness of leprosy 1 

There the women jeer at each other, and at the spec- 
tacle before them. Nothing elevates them, nothing 
touches them ; they geek in their vanity, or they snap 
in their viciousness, — all the same. They play with 
their spaniels at their elbows, or they feed the ducks 



The Life of Pride and Levity. 313 

down below, — for fondling of animals is the fashion of 
the day ; but they show no reverence, no mercy, for 
humanity. A couple of citizens, husband and wife, 
some Pepys and his partner, a man who lies and 
cheats, a woman who slaps her maids and apes court 
follies, but yet who are not wholly without perceptions 
of feeling and duty, sail by, and they rail at them like 
so many furies. They rail worse when a boat, with 
men in cassocks, accommodating but well-meaning 
Burnet among them, follows in the track. But when 
the boat with the Life-guardsmen, in their scarlet and 
gold, approaches, and one is holding his feathered hat 
in his hand, and conceitedly combing his scented wig 
with an ivory comb, and another is rising and bowing, 
his hand on his heart, with impudent gallantry ; then 
they nod and smile and mince and swim and fan them- 
selves, and dart glances of hatred at each other, until 
one knows not whether to sink to the ground with 
affront at their voluntary idiocy or grief at their univer- 
sal malice. A funeral in sable and crape, with muffled 
music and wailing dirge, floats under the window, and 
one smells at her essence-box, and another flouts at the 
chief-mourner. One poor sinner may wince and droop 
her head, thinking, with a canker in her heart, of her 
old father and mother under the yews in the country 
churchyard ; or of her little child, to watch by whose 
dying-bed she did desert for a night or so the king's or 
the duke's theatre ; but her companions make faces at 
the poor wretch behind her back, and, looking into her 
dim eyes, twit her with hypocrisy. A brave marriage- 
party, with flutes and hautboys and waving flags, a 
14 



314 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

smiling bridegroom, a blushing bride, a troop of exult- 
ing friends, flash and ring upon the sympathetic water, 
that reflects back their gladness; and they tell an 
odious story of the bride, and they pity the bride- 
groom. 

Do you revolt at the scene and the actors ? Then 
lay this lesson to heart; pride and levity were once 
triumphant in England, and such were their children. 





XIII. 



THE LIFE OF SENSE AND HEAVINESS. 




HERE is another life, the reverse of that of 
pride and levity, and yet, in many respects, 
insipid, incapable of enduring excellence, 
and unfit for immortality. I do not know 
that it is so attractive to young girls. I think it is more 
a dull refuge for those who have been smitten, who 
have begun existence eager and sensitive, but who have 
experienced disappointment, and in its sting and chill 
have sullenly or apathetically resolved to be content 
with what is ; for, alas ! the life of sense and heaviness 
is no better than a Christianized version of " Let us 
eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." But there are 
endless exceptions to all rules ; and to the craving, 
restless spirit of every age, enduring the pangs of hun- 
ger, and the wounds of being baffled and bruised in the 
prison-house of this world, the waters of Lethe murmur 
of rest, quiescence, torpor. Ah ! but these waters of 
Lethe are very different from the waters which the Gos- 
pel discloses ; the last are the waters of life, the " living 
fountains " ; and the first are the waters of forgetful- 
ness, stupefaction, death. 



3 1 6 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

In this life of sense and heaviness there may be, 
there almost invariably is, as there can be even in a 
life of pride and levity, a scrupulous attention to all 
outward spiritual adjuncts, but within there is a singu- 
lar sluggishness and coldness. There is, generally, an 
inclination to repudiate utterly all chivalrous, romantic 
adventure and speculation, forgetting how these things 
were wont to pertain to Christianity. There is a dis- 
position to merge all individuality into one mould and 
pattern ; and, therefore, this life of sense and heaviness 
recommends itself exceedingly to the stolid, the timid, 
and the lazy, as very respectable. Nothing erratic 
about it ; no perplexing paradox, no disastrous, no 
shameful fall ! Respectability and comfort are the 
leading articles of this life \ for men, having renounced 
passion and imagination, naturally fall back on what 
they consider the lawful gratification of their senses, 
after they have performed their duty in their business 
and their church. 

Families of this type have the most commodious 
houses, the most prolific gardens (they take more to 
vegetables than to flowers), and, if they are of sufficient 
wealth, the easiest carriages. They indulge in what we 
may call domestic luxuries and family extravagances. 
They generally deserve the credit of making all com- 
fortable around them. They never know the shifts of 
the poor, pretentious slave of fashion. There is a com- 
mendable sincerity about them \ their inner garments 
are as soft and fine as their outer wear. They have a 
natural repugnance to what is glaring of every descrip- 
tion i perhaps, because in their patient, accurate re- 



The Life of Sense and Heaviness. 3 1 7 

searches after comfort and respectability, they have 
found too much light trying to the eye, and intoxi- 
cating to the brain. But the bugbear which they 
present to the world is dire dulness, and their mortal 
enemies are hardship and fatigue ; for very few things 
in this world, for no wonders of nature, or treasures of 
art, will they undergo them. The voices in such fam- 
ilies are carefully moderated, the faces calm : the 
daughters are self-possessed and still, industrious or 
idle, as it may be, but their industry is of the most 
matter-of-fact and humdrum description, as if some- 
thing new and out of the way, even in a piece of fancy- 
work, would break the spell. 

This life has its virtues ; it is a better life than its 
opposite life ; it is solvent, and it is not essentially and 
thoroughly false ; but it also is untrue to our higher 
natures ; and it also is, to a certain extent, demoralizing 
and degrading. Its most conspicuous disadvantage is 
stagnancy, and we are all well enough acquainted with 
the consequences of stagnancy in the material world. 
Here, too, thought and feeling lose their freshness and 
vigor. A life of sense and heaviness is a life of narrow- 
ness and sloth ; it is not a life of progress such as a 
Christian's should be ; it fosters intolerance, it checks 
heroism, and, my dear friend, if you do not know that 
heroism is identical with Christianity, then you greatly 
mistake either the one or the other. 

Look abroad, and see the results of this life hovering 
over many of the representatives of grim but glorious 
Puritans, wild but grand Covenanters, enthusiastic 
but ennobled Methodists. They are not satisfactory. 



318 Papers for Thought fid Girls. 

They are a tenacious adherence to the swaddling- 
bands of uncharitableness, and a kind of morose self- 
indulgence. 

Do not, then, let any young girl fancy that she is one 
of the salt of the earth, because she has never cared, or 
has ceased to care, for song or story, dance or jest, for 
travelling or painting ; because she confines herself to 
housekeeping and sewing useful work, and reading solid 
books, and taking a walk with papa and mamma ; be- 
cause she abjures rambling and scrambling, and cannot 
sit up of nights, and is quite surprised that any one can 
be interested in such old-world foolery as belongs to 
May-mornings and- Yule-nights and Easter-days. Above 
all, do not let her think it very silly of her brother Harry 
to make such a work about his dog, and to be so set on 
soldiering ; and do not let her conclude that he is seri- 
ously in the wrong when he will go away on these bois- 
terous shooting and boating excursions, and insist on 
caring a thousand times more for games of all sorts 
than she could ever do. 



THE SECOND ROOM. 

THE window no longer looked to the water, but to 
the city street, dark with tall houses, and re- 
sounding with clatter and din. It was not that the in- 
habitants did not like the water; they did like it, and 
they liked trim gardens leading down to it, with formal 
walks, and clipped privet, box, and holly ; but they 
thought it a waste of time to indulge their tastes, and 



The Life of Sense and Heaviness. 319 

considered it altogether more commendable to keep 
them in abeyance. So they sat in the front-room, and 
worked at plain spinning and heavy white-seam. Dutch 
William was on the throne ; Blackmore was the poet ; 
Hans Sloane, the painter ; all was order, industry, and 
sobriety. No matter that the order was rigidity, the 
industry drudgery, the sobriety primness. 

The flowing hair, the bare arms and shoulders, were 
all gone, and in their place the highest of stomachers, 
the stiffest of sleeves, and such a tower of ribbons 
and lace — " pinners with purdan," Swift called it — 
reared on the top of the head to confer dignity. We 
never had such an ugly headgear as in the reign of 
good Queen Mary, she whom her husband loved so 
well, she who died so sweetly. 

The work went on in that house by the river like 
clock-work. It was the fashion now to work. William 
worked in his council-chamber and on his battle-fields. 
His favorites were not given over to foppery and frip- 
pery. Albemarle worked ; Portland worked. What 
do you think of the Lord Mayor's wife, that worshipful 
madam, the Lady Mayoress, being a mantua-maker and 
milliner in William's reign, all for the glory of working % 
It would be a remarkable thing in our day if women 
trooped to the Mansion-house to buy feathers and laces, 
in place of to wear them. It was not an unsatisfactory 
life to those who were used to it. Perhaps it was too 
satisfactory, puffed up the performers, rendered them 
swollen with a heavy species of pride, a dull inertness, 
a dogged self-conceit and stubbornness. But think 
what this life must have been to a young thing from 



320 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

the country, from a lavish, careless, gay, gambolsome 
country-house. From hall and summer-parlor, from 
hunting and hawking, from sun-dial and sweet-pot, 
from frisking like the dogs, or basking, like them, on 
the door-step, from revelry which had only gayety and 
glamour to a child, — from these pleasant scenes a 
young girl was withdrawn, brought up to town, and 
deposited in the house by the river. 

The dame of Mary's reign vowed to fulfil in a proper 
spirit the charge thrust on her. There should be no 
indulgence, no toying and trifling. She would expel 
the Egyptian blood ; she would rear the little cousin 
like her own staid, demure daughters \ and in this, take 
note, there was not merely strict justice, but worthy 
generosity. 

The child was slight and small-boned, and as supple 
as an eel, with one of those olive complexions which 
show green with ill-health and rage, but which in vigor 
and joy are strangely, duskily, bright and beautiful, like 
a pomegranate. She had large eyes, which could flash 
and lighten and darken in a way which the dame (her 
aunt) said was more like a cat's eyes than a human 
being's. First, when she came to London, she was 
stunned by misfortune, — the death of some of her 
family, the exile of others, the change from license 
and lightness to dependence and severe discipline. It 
took her months to revive and reassert her real nature. 
By that time her relations had got used to her pres- 
ence, and they had come to consider her — not un- 
kindly, mind, never with wilful unkindness — as one 
of themselves, far behind them in available knowledge 



The Life of Sense and Heaviness. 321 

and capacity, but still one of themselves. They were 
as startled as they could well be when she began to ask 
when was their mumming and maying ; if they always 
droned on in this style ; if they had no diversion. 
What ! neither at Christmas nor Easter, — the Chris- 
tian holidays, nor at Midsummer, the festival of the 
year, nor at the bountiful term of good St. Martin % 
Her keepers did not suffer themselves to be amused ; 
they rebuked her when she was naughty, when she pro- 
tested that she would go to sleep over that solemn dis- 
cussion on the rival merits of altars and pulpits, lawn 
sleeves and Geneva gowns ; when she found fault with 
the solid meat, and demanded sweet cakes. They 
punished her, tasked her, imprisoned her, never inhu- 
manly, always with a quiet, methodical regard to what 
they considered her health and strength. They won- 
dered why she did not improve ; they feared she was 
about to vindicate, after all, the hot, reckless line of 
which she was come. They complained, with truth, 
that she was not grateful for the trouble she cost them, 
since they could not term gratitude those fits of sorrow 
and remorse, and outbursts of inconsistent, incoherent 
affection with which she came creeping to their feet, 
and kissing their hands, and looking up at them with 
her large lustrous eyes, after her pets. These demon- 
strations only plagued and distressed them. 

The dwellers in the house by the river could not 
have afforded their visitor much pleasure without de- 
parting altogether from the stern mould of their life, 
and that could not have been expected of them. They 
allowed themselves almost no relaxation. They cared 
14* u 



322 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

for nothing but the glorious Revolution and the pure 
Reformation, and an honest and diligent life. They 
did not even make William's exceptions with regard to 
hunting and fighting. The head of the house was old 
and heavy, and could not ride furiously, and the wars 
were over. But they were as silent as William, and I 
fear, I fear, they would as phlegmatically and without a 
dream of sensuality have eaten up all the dish of pease 
from a Queen Mary or a Princess Anne of a third party. 
There was but one amusement which the house fairly 
commanded, and that was the river, and to that the 
stranger girl took with an intense addiction. Its pag- 
eants, as she called them, were like old home scenes 
and native air to her. She relished them, and she 
would, had she been permitted, have sat hours looking 
out on the ripple and wavelet, the summer-houses and 
landing-places, and, above all, on the perpetual passage 
of every description of company. Her glued-together 
lips sprang asunder \ her cold hands acquired a soft 
warmth, her eyes beamed, and from her mouth there 
burst a faint echo of the old blithe laughter. 

The dame forbade that waste of time, at first inci- 
dentally, as an interference with becoming employment, 
then strictly as a penance, then austerely as a contradic- 
tion to her will, which she would not suffer. 

The child coaxed, begged, resisted furiously, defied 
the interdict, feigned to submit, and was treated as a 
cheat and a liar. It was such a small matter of con- 
tention, such a small, small matter 3 and yet such a 
weight hung on its silken thread. 

She moped, sat with her face to the wall ; her olive 



The Life of Sense and Heaviness. 323 

color grew green to ghastliness ; the white of her eye- 
balls looked blue by contrast, a film spread over the 
pupils. 

" IVLadam," said one of the young daughters of the 
house, in an anxious voice, " I am frightened for Sac- 
charissa, the crossing will kill her ; rather give in on 
such a trifle. I cannot understand why it should occa- 
sion her grief and despair, but do not oppose her longer, 
and I will sit with her myself at the river window, and 
see that she stitches the bands." 

" Never, Dorcas ; it is pampering her folly. Grief 
and despair, forsooth ! A vile temper and a wanton 
mind. Yield to her lust for show and noise, and she 
will have enough of the river before all is done." 

" Enough of the river." Was that prophetical % 

Macaulay recalls a tale of shame and woe in con- 
nection with a Quaker household two hundred years 
ago ; and he has been censured for the ruthlessness 
with which he has prosecuted his study of moral anat- 
omy. There is no one to be pained by my scanty 
exposure of a nameless victim ; and, besides, the family 
story was closely hushed up at the time, — only a few 
whispers got about of madness and self-destruction, of 
dabbled feet and draggled hair, and a little pouting 
mouth, cold and wan, defiled with mud and clay. The 
doctors said something of the spleen, of the brain in a 
state of excitement, of constitutional disease. There 
was a grave and decorous funeral, trembling, writhing 
women being all in the background, behind closed 
shutters and pulled-down window-blinds. I dare say 
they were reconciled in time to the unlooked-for trag- 



324 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

edy by their good intentions. I can fancy that they 
would shake off their horror in their sense that they 
had done everything for the best ; and the doctors had 
stated there was hereditary disease, and a highly excited 
condition of the brain. Far be it from me to take it 
upon me to pretend that they had no right to the sol- 
ace. I would only ask the calm, sedate members of 
society to be humble, and admit there are things in the 
world never dreamt of in their philosophy ; to be piti- 
ful and tender, lest, for some little matter, some very 
little matter, some repudiation of God's lights of nature 
and art, song and story, blossom of flower, and carol 
of bird, he asks of them, " Where is thy sister, thy 
sensitive, impulsive sister, whom by a little concession 
you might have saved, but whom by a great denial you 
destroyed J " 





XIV. 



THE LIFE OF SARCASM AND BITTERNESS. 




HERE is another life to which the few, not 
the many, respond, and that is the life of 
sarcasm and bitterness. In this world, 
where there is so much that is absurd, in 
opposition to upright principles, good judgment, cor- 
rect taste, it is sometimes hard not to snarl, if we are 
too conscientious and benevolent on the whole to 
sneer. Really it seems sometimes not a very unchris- 
tian act to turn upon our neighbors, and barb any 
arrows of scorn and derision which we possess, and 
shoot them off one after another, until we have pierced 
their callousness, and caused them to desist from their 
offences. We have done them good. Why should they 
distrust and detest us forever afterwards ? But just 
because they will do so, is sufficient evidence that 
irony is a weapon that can only be profitably used at a 
wide reach, and on rare occasions. Our neighbor may 
be more sensible since we galled her ; but if she is 
more malicious, we have injured instead of benefiting 
her. 



326 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

They say, " Those who live in glass houses should 
not fling stones." Now we all live in glass houses, 
and, not from a selfish regard for our own safety, but 
from sheer modesty, we ought to be harmless as sum- 
mer lightning in our strictures. The poison of folly 
and wrongheadedness coursing in our neighbor's veins 
is in our own, only it may have come out in another 
shape ; and perhaps our fellows are even now regarding 
its ebullitions and excrescences with a rage and con- 
tempt very similar to our own. But, any way, it is 
certainly there. So we should be tender and merciful, 
whether we are merry or wrathful \ and this very quality 
of tenderness and mercy is what distinguishes bland 
humor from its savage brother, wit Who would say 
that Addison had not a perception of the oddities and 
errors of his contemporaries ] Who would imagine that 
Shakespeare was deficient in the observation of the 
world around him ] Yet, compare the large-hearted 
charity of him who was called " gentle Willy," and the 
Christian courtesy of Mr. Spectator, with the venom of 
Pope and Dryden and the terrible Dean ! and how 
much was society improved by their spite, while they 
themselves formed mere units in its thousands % Where 
are many of the customs, and all the poor flesh-and- 
blood foes on whom they wreaked their vengeance ] 
Gone ; dead and gone. And so much of the genius 
which might have enlightened and sustained us for 
ages, wasted on these temporary hatreds. 

In women, vivacity was wont to be a standard charm, 
and, between ourselves, I think it is so still. I believe 
a great many of the descriptions of women, attractive 



The Life of Sarcasm and Bitterness. 327 

from their shyness, abstraction, pensiveness, are — 
well, descriptions ! At least, I prize the lively women 
of good old fiction and biography ; not the rattles, but 
the cordial, shrewd, sensible, though often prejudiced 
or partial women, like Lizzie Bennet. (How proud and 
pleased I was when I first read Archbishop Whater/s 
review of Miss Austen's novels !) I like my women to 
be practical, and sometimes brilliant ; and on that 
account I make great allowance for the trenchant 
tongues of those mighty independent dames and spin- 
sters of Dean Ramsay's, for the sake of their raciness. 
But I must confess that, with women, the weapon of 
sharpness, not to say bitterness, is a dangerous tool, 
apt to be bad for their acquaintances, and often very 
bad for themselves. It might be otherwise, when 
greater freedom of speech was licensed ; but now 
women have unanimously agreed to detest the person 
who takes them off, more than the person who deceives 
them. They prefer treachery to sarcasm. It may be a 
part of their timidity, their defective sense of justice, as 
men will have it ; but they cannot away with the lip 
curled and the laugh raised at their expense ; they can- 
not endure it in the present, or forgive it in the past. 
Such a horror have they of this faculty or propensity, 
that, in my own experience as a woman, I have heard 
the most inoffensive, and — not to put a fine point 
upon it — the most incapable women unhesitatingly 
accused of the insult ; and, without a trial, blackballed 
for it on the moment and forever from friendly cir- 
cles. I have known excellent, kindly, amusing women 
shunned habitually and persistently for indulging in the 
play but a little. 



328 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

Now it is not a wholesome thing to dislike or be dis- 
liked, unless where it cannot be avoided ; and when 
those who should be of the same flock with us com- 
mence to ruffle up their feathers, utter shrill cries, and 
either run away, or else set on us with beak and claws, 
the consequences are exciting, but they are not improv- 
ing. An innocent drag of good-humored protest put 
on silliness is withdrawn, and a drag all jagged with 
rough and cruel edges substituted in its place. The 
very effects presupposed are produced \ the sarcastic 
woman waxes self-conceited and sour. 

Deal with sarcasm, then, very sparingly, and with a 
very loving lightness. You know you are bound, inas- 
much as lieth in you, to live peaceably with all men. 
On that account, do not be swift to fling down the 
challenge of biting gibes, or there will never be peace 
again for you. I should be sorry to spoil your archness 
or your sprightliness. I have a natural abhorrence to a 
mawkish, sleepy-headed, or sly girl, who will not give 
her opinion, much more from the fear of getting into a 
scrape, or from sheer stupidity, than from wisdom or 
gentleness ; but I do not see that you must needs be 
perverted into cowardly or cunning girls, by refraining 
from acerbity, or sweetening it until it becomes an 
.agreeable tonic, rather than a kind of meat or drink to 
set the teeth on edge and rasp the throat. For your 
comfort, I can tell you that many of the liveliest and 
cleverest women who have ever existed have been the 
most agreeable, considerate, tolerant, patient, and hope- 
ful. They have been like sunshine in their families, 
and sunshine in their circles ; nothing noxious lingered 



The Life of Sarcasm and Bitterness. 329 

within their light. I can refer you again to the exam- 
ple in Proverbs, where the same model woman who 
opened her mouth with wisdom, had on her tongue 
the law of kindness. 



THE THIRD ROOM. 

IT was a room to the water again, but it was no 
longer overhanging the river, it was comparatively 
retired, and the company who occupied it were more 
engrossed with themselves and each other than with 
the procession before them. They glanced out occa- 
sionally to catch a suggestion whereon to hang a witti- 
cism, or a simile wherewith to point a repartee ; but 
they were sufficient for themselves, they needed no 
foreign element for their entertainment. 

The party had prints, manuscript verses, and cards 
before them, with Turkey coffee and claret. To do 
them justice, they confined themselves principally to 
the prints and the poems. They dealt with them in 
an insolent way. Insolence was their forte ; a story 
was told of a country parson who had stumbled 
amongst them, and, after listening to their talk, could 
not resist the astounding exclamation, " Good people, 
do you live by your insolence ] " Satire was the breath 
of their nostrils ; nothing was thought of, if it was not 
satirical. The great poets' grand diction and magnifi- 
cent imagery would have been nothing without the stabs 
which they inflicted liberally. That audience cared 
little for the Ode to St. Cecilia's Day, or the Elegy on 



330 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

an Unfortunate Lady ; but it adored Absalom and 
Ahithophel, and the Dunciad. 

These individuals would sacrifice anybody, anything, 
the dearest friend they possessed, to a clever saying. 
A sentence so savage, an epigram so neat in its con- 
tempt, that London would ring with it, would make 
any one of them turn his or her back on the others 
forever. 

How the critics handled the verses before them ! 
Some of the verses were jaundiced, leering, snarling : 
those they treated with respect j at least, they read 
them, luxuriated in them, found no fault with their hor- 
rible misanthropy, their loathsome selfishness. Others 
were hackneyed and stilted enough, but with a kind of 
fantastic meandering over milder, meeker ideas. These 
they attacked with the scalping-knife and the toma- 
hawk, and despatched without quarter. It was not that 
they had no sympathy with the human feelings, no 
interest in the humanity which the weak lines ex- 
pressed \ but they were like Anglo-Indians fed on 
curry alone. They could not commit themselves, 
either, by betraying any weakness before each other. 
These literary men and women had to live constantly 
on their guard, as an American squatter against a fel- 
low-squatter's bowie-knife. Lynch law was openly pro- 
claimed by them to the death. 

The company indulged in scandal vile enough some- 
times, but still it was to expedite a glittering innuendo, 
to warrant a shrewd judgment. Scandal did not form 
the staple of their conversation ; they did not batten on 
it like those fair women, and loose cavaliers of Charles's 



The Life of Sarcasm and Bitterness. 331 

era, but as we derive our diamonds from carbon, and 
our amethysts from clay, they used an ugly foundation 
for their scintillating gems. 

At a reasonably early hour the buckram-skirted coats, 
and gowns " all of a curl," vanished to some later drum 
or rout or turn at Ranelagh. The mistress of the house 
sat alone among her patches and paste, and the last 
dedications which had solicited her patronage and 
crowned her with reflected honor. As she leant back 
in her chair, and held up her thin foot to the fire, the 
writing on a humble letter addressed to her caught her 
eye. She touched her hand-bell for her weary woman, 
Betty. 

" Did Master Giles or his sister call again to-day % " 

"Yes, my lady," answered Betty, sparing in her 
words ; never gossiping when she could help it with 
that cold, brilliant mistress. 

" Well, well, they will call again to-morrow, like the 
newsman or the chairman, or the linkman, or any other 
attentive servant." 

" No," escaped from Betty's lips, half unawares. 

" And why not, mistress % " demanded her lady, 
sharply." 

" Because he said he had given up his poetry, and 
was gone back to his apprenticeship, and she told me 
she had got a place for herself as nursery-maid at the 
squire's." 

" Fools," declared the patroness, scornfully, " and 
this is all their gentle breeding has brought them to ] 
His verses were not so very bad, only they were about 
purling streams and sheep and ring-doves. She em- 



332 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

broidered, as Minerva span. I would have taken her 
into my own employment. I meant to do something 
for him with the men at the coffee-houses. Why did 
they not choose to warm their feet with waiting ] Did 
they confide in you % I see it in your calf's face." 

" If it please your ladyship, he could not bear to have 
his poor verses cut up any longer, when he only craved 
a simple opinion on their merits. Instead of that, he 
had them served back to him minced into morsels, and 
drenched with pepper and vinegar. These were his 
words, I '11 go down on my knees upon them," cried 
our timid Betty, whose wits were, as she asserted, " a 
sort of shaken out of her," by dint of being exposed to 
poignant sarcasms. 

" Smart enough words, you simpleton, only he should 
have taken care that he directed them to the right per- 
son, and at the right time. And what was Mistress 
Malapert's complaint ? I 'm sure I had her up and 
praised her patterns, and their execution." 

"O please, my lady, she could not stand it, — your 
other observations, though I told her, they were only 
your way." 

" You are a Queen of Sheba, my girl. What did I 
say % " in her flippant-company tone now, tossing back 
her head, and looking straight before her with her 
saucy eyes, expecting to be amused by the discomfiture 
of her proteges at her own keen shafts, darted with a 
coward's aim into defenceless birds. 

" That it was not her heels which were red like the 
ladies of quality, but her claws or paws ; that her thick 
voice made you palate of Yorkshire pudding." 



The Life of Sarcasm and Bitterness. 333 

" Very good \ I wish I had said them to a roomful 
of hearers. Go, Betty." 

" They have saved me some trouble," mused the 
witty lady again, nursing her knees and toasting her 
toes j " these clodpoles with their fine feelings. They 
had a claim upon me, the son and daughter of the man 
who carried through my father's lawsuit for nothing. 
He was paid for it in reputation, but he did not live to 
coin money out of his character. They might have 
been useful to me if they had remained near me ; they 
seemed modest and intelligent, absurd as they have 
proved themselves ; and they looked like creatures 
who would have been grateful. But I vow no one can 
endure an idle observation, or a lively retort,, save we 
wits, who are inured to it. Sure, it breaks no bones. 
There was my brother's widow. Poor Dick ! he was 
as gallant as steel, though he was soft as butter. He 
held my part in that false story of my friend Lady 
Bell's ; I know she made it, because her brain was dry, 
and she must wag her tongue to freshen it. Dick's 
widow could do nobody any harm. She was as silly 
as a piping canary ; but she would have it that I poked 
my finger at her weeds and her affliction, because I 
said she had changed herself into a lackadaisacal, 
sooty, town-sparrow ; and she went away from me and 
got * into debt and difficulties, and died, spent with 
shame and terror, on her way to the Fleet, where they 
were carrying her to frighten her into applying to me 
or some other friend. By all the world, it was like a 
piping canary disagreeing with its proposed cage, and 
dashing its head against the wires beforehand. I am 



334 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

low to-night ; I must have my drops. Quick, Betty, — 
cart-horse, snail ? — my drops ! " 

What ! low? — that dashing, many-sided woman low 
in her luxurious room, on her stately bed ] Even 
so, for there no mocking laughter, no jeering smiles, 
no replies spiced as the questions which provoked 
them, no flashing notoriety, no cutting power excited 
her, engrossed her, possessed her with the strength of 
baleful fever, and the hardness of fatal insensibility. 




XV. 



CONSOLATIONS. 



PERSEVERANCE IN WELL-DOING AND PATIENCE OF HOPE. 




S youth disheartened or discouraged by these 
papers of advice and warning ? Come, then, 
we will walk in a shady wood on soft turf, 
under the pale sweet flowers of the wood- 



lands, more delicate and more graceful than the bright, 
hardy blossoms of the downs. 

What should a young girl ask for more within her 
grasp and capacity, more essential, desirable, and de- 
lightful, than the fulfilment of the injunction to perse- 
verance in well-doing and patience of hope ? You will 
observe that it is not to violent effort or extravagant 
ecstasy, strange to her constitution or faculties, that she 
is invited. No, in quietness shall be her strength. 
She is called to a steady, sober adherence to her faith ; 
a meek, wistful clinging and following of that star in 
the east — that star of Bethlehem — which she is hum- 
bly conscious, with God's help, she may attain. Often 
when we are addressed on some admirable perform- 



336 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

ance, our hearts sink in despair. We cannot do it ; we 
feel it is not in us. But our God knows our frames, 
that they are dust. He does not set us a task which 
we cannot with his blessing and guidance accomplish. 
He leaves us a wide margin. Perseverance in well- 
doing, — our own particular power and mode of well- 
doing • patience of hope, — whether glad assurance, 
lowly trust, or tremulous submission \ all are according 
to our natures. We are not summoned to the sudden 
achievement of a miracle, we are not asked to dissever 
ourselves from our individual tempers, tastes, and habits. 
We are not commanded to perfection here below. Over 
our imperfections is flung the mantle of His perfections 
till we awake after His likeness. He knows us in the 
relations in which we stand, in all their perplexities and 
complications, and He is merciful to our poor womanly 
shrinkings and yearnings. Who was such a friend to 
women as He whom Mary called not Rabbi, like her 
brethren, but Rabboni % 

Day by day, by little and little, in spite of shortcom- 
ings and downfalls, by watchfulness, by earnestness, by 
constancy, we are to mould our pursuits, to train our 
inclinations, to grow in grace, and reach that love which 
casteth out fear, — that service which is perfect freedom. 
Could we seek an easier yoke, a lighter burden, one 
more fit for us to bear, or which promises us a richer 
reward ] 

True, we will have many a sharp struggle and sore 
weariness, but are we not accustomed to say to each 
other that nothing worth gaining is to be had without 
pains % And think how we would welcome such en- 



Consolations. 337 

couragement and assurance if it came to us in our 
ordinary interests. If, even in the small matter of 
beauty you girls were told that by certain walks at cer- 
tain hours, certain diets, certain abstinences, certain 
not unpleasant but refreshing washes, you would grow 
fairer and fairer day by day, until at last you were 
radiantly beautiful, would you not perform all these ] 
What would it be in art 1 If I were fully persuaded 
that by careful studies and assiduous - strokes and 
touches bestowed periodically and punctually, I would 
find myself a great artist, large-hearted, large-headed, 
with a free utterance, walking forth to benefit and 
charm my kind, — would I not attend to these studies ] 
Ah ! it is because we have not faith in what is ordained 
that we are so slow to try it, and admit its wisdom, its 
safety, its sweetness. 



THE CROSS APPOINTED. 

" But what is my vocation ? In what particular 
way am I to be useful and happy % " That is just 
what no one can tell you. You must find that out 
for yourself, and, probably, you will not arrive at a 
certainty about it for years and years to come. Do 
not be troubled on that account ; you have only to 
persevere in well-doing. The kind of well-doing may 
be shifted ; it is often shifted for you sadly against the 
grain ; still it does not matter. But there is one thing 
that will be a great part of your discipline, which you 
have not to puzzle over, which is arranged for you, and 
15 v 



338 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

brought to your very doors. Your cross is appointed, 
and if you believe that it is adjudged by unerring wis- 
dom, it should be a great comfort to you. 

Now I would be very far from suggesting to any one, 
especially to a young girl, to magnify the little vexa- 
tions which are around her. But, as to the annoyances 
which stick to us, those which are undeniably our own, 
and attend us like privileged duns or pests, week after 
week, month after month, I would ask a girl to accept 
them as her visible, present cross. I do not believe 
many of us (we may be thankful for it) are called upon, 
except it be at intervals, to carry a great, heavy cross 
of faintness or anguish. 

Our crosses are more what we are disposed to treat as 
worries ; to be very unceremonious in pettishly grum- 
bling at ; resisting hotly ; and shaking off angrily when 
we can. I have already said that I believe if we would 
regard many of our small trials as the cross appointed 
by our Master, we would bear them all whatever they 
may be. The want of beauty, the want of intellect, 
the want of consequence, influence, ease, entertain- 
ment, the inability to travel, the absence of congenial 
society, the wake or captious though loving kinsmen 
and kinswomen, the meddling friends, the heedless 
children, the provoking servants, — we would not only 
bear them all with comparative resignation and se- 
renity, but we would cause them to become to us bless- 
ings in disguise. 

To look about for crosses, to make of ourselves wilful 
martyrs, to go about hanging our heads, or holding 
them bolt upright, is not only foolish and impertinent 



Consolations. 3-39 

behavior, but the most aggravating way in which a 
young girl, who ought to be docile, confiding, and 
humble, can render herself a sore cross to her rela- 
tives. This is a very different thing from quietly 
facing an evil and striving to the best of her power to 
amend what is wrong. It is very different, too, from 
accepting the evil as at least a part of her cross, laid 
upon her by her Father, who cannot err, who will re- 
move it in his own good time; "ease her shoulder 
from bearing the pots," or so strengthen that shoulder 
that the weight will no more be felt, but will dimmish 
into a mere straw balanced on its old resting-place. 

Yes, yes, the fact of our cross appointed for us with- 
out our own will is an incalculable advantage, though 
our poor eyes may be holden not to see it. If we were 
left to determine our own temptations and afflictions, 
what mistakes we should commit ! When we do pre- 
sumptuously appropriate them without warrant, what 
fools we make of ourselves, what wicked fools into the 
bargain ! 

LOVE, JOY, AND PEACE. 

It was hope, not happiness, which Moore likened to 
the bird in the story, 

" Which flitted from tree to tree " ; 
but the similitude may do for the one quality as well as 
for the other ; and Moore said again, — 

* ' Poor wanderers of a stormy day, 
From wave to wave we 're driven ; 
And fancy's flash and reason's ray 
Serve but to light our troubled way, 
There 's nothing bright but Heaven. " 



340 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

And in no quarter upon earth can I read the charter 
and title-deeds of happiness more legibly written than 
in the words " love, joy, peace." What else can we 
desire % What else do we pursue ] In a million ele- 
ments, varying as our million characters ; in youth and 
age j in health and sickness ; in nature and art ; in 
literature \ in domestic duties \ in philanthropy, in the 
many-friended house, in the house of few earthly friends ; 
where dispositions are simple and homely, where they 
are lofty and refined ; in poverty, and riches \ — every- 
where, everywhere love, joy, and peace may be met 
and hailed. 

Then why so many haggard faces, restless spirits, 
fermenting tempers in the midst of what in outward 
show is almost unalloyed prosperity ] Because love, 
joy, and peace are the fruits of the Spirit, and where 
the olive-tree of the Spirit is not, there you will look in 
vain for the olive-leaves and berries. No, " love, joy, 
and peace," to dwell with you, abide with you, not for 
an hour or a day, but permanently, are the fruits of the 
Spirit, and there is no use in diving into a sea, or climb- 
ing a mountain to discover them elsewhere in our pres- 
ent inheritance. 

This world is a goodly world and beautiful as the 
day, but since sin entered the bowers of Eden, it is a 
world of graves, of dead friends, dead hopes and expec- 
tations. It will never answer the requirements of the 
immortal spirit. It is dreariest to him whose soul has 
retained the most of the first pure image in which it 
was created, though most dreadful to the man deep in 
brutishness and crime. Even the good, those who have 



Consolations. 341 

the Spirit the Comforter, feel its influences sometimes 
too depressing, and cry, " O if it were not for our 
hopes, vows, and prayers for the New Heavens and the 
New Earth preparing for us, in the day of our calamity, 
when our feet stumble on the dark mountains, we would 
be fain to moan out or moan, — 

' I am aweary, aweary, 
I would that I were dead. ' " 

Did not David long for the wings of the dove, that he 
might escape from the windy storm and tempest, and 
fly away and be at rest % Were not Arnold's and 
Chalmers's souls sometimes filled with a great sadness 1 
Can it be otherwise while we dwell in tabernacles of 
clay, and contemplate our rivers of delight run dry, our 
cisterns shattered, our gourds withered] Or while- we 
look around and feel for the broken hearts on every 
side of us, the dusky or bright hair grown gray, the 
goodly arms shrunk and feeble 1 And if these expe- 
riences exist in the green tree whose sap will never fail, 
how shall they flourish in the dry, where there is no 
grasp on the future, no peace of conscience, no growth 
in grace ! 

But you must not fancy that such mournful moods 
are habitual or even frequent with the good. Do you 
know the song of " John Anderson " ] If you are a 
Scotch girl you ought to know it, — it is worth a hun- 
dred thousand " Beautiful Stars." Be certain that the 
Carline speaks no more than the truth to the Carle in 
in the canty lines, — 

" And mony a happy day, John, 
We 've had wi' ane anither. " 



342 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

This " love, joy, and peace," which is at once our 
crown and our shield, is within our reach. It is not 
like beauty, accomplishments, eminence, power, — a 
doubtful, deceitful chance. It is, although the fruit of 
the Spirit, our own \ for the great, good Holy Spirit, 
the earnest and consummation of all blessings, is to be 
had for our prayers. 

Although you have your plagues, your doubts, and 
your distractions, are you to be distressed when " love 
joy, and peace " may be yours % In your day-dreams 
and castle-buildings, tell me did you ever imagine any- 
thing more perfect % " Love, joy, and peace " are the 
better, brighter, and surer that they are not dependent 
upon a finite hand or a fallible wilL I leave you to 
think of them, confident that whatever obstruction of 
your material schemes may await you, whatever con- 
fusion or transformation of your spiritual ideas may 
befall you, they are yours both here and hereafter. 



THE SAVIOUR NEAR. 

Some may declare that these arguments are very 
good for health and happiness ; but in sorrow and 
sickness, in sore and peculiar affliction, when the Prov- 
idence of God is all dark to us, when we are stricken, 
smitten, and afflicted, when we do not feel as if we 
could grasp anything, when we lie stretched on our 
death-beds, — then even this a love, joy, and peace," 
which surely requires a healthy frame of mind to re- 
ceive it, is not enough for us. We want something for 



Consolations. 343 

the swelling waters, the howling winds, the awful lone- 
liness, the still more awful call to meet our God in 
judgment. And there is something to. meet this ex- 
tremity, for " Man's extremity is God's opportunity," 
and this is the extremity of human ill. There is a rod 
and staff reserved for the most perilous expedition, for 
the last journey of all. "Behold, I am with you 
always, until the end of the world." " I will come 
again and take you to myself, that where I am there 
ye may be also." 

Can you hear that and attend to it ? The Saviour is 
near, at your side ; the everlasting arms are underneath 
you. 

' ' My eyes are watching by thy bed, 

My blessing is around thee shed, 

My arm is underneath thy head ; 

'Tis I, be not afraid." 

The same Saviour who had a human mother, who 
taught the Samaritan woman, who answered the Ca- 
naanitish woman for her devil-possessed daughter, who 
gave back to Martha and Mary their dead brother, 
who pardoned Mary Magdalene, who spoke on the 
dolorous way, and hanging on the cross itself, in reply 
to the sorrows and necessities of women, and who ap- 
peared on his resurrection first (first of all, — ■ think of 
that !) to one of his Marys, — the wisest, kindest, and 
best friend whom woman ever possessed, left them this 
assurance. Do not regard Him as a doctrine, but as a 
person. Do not fear Him in that sense of fear which 
repels and crushes love, but cling to Him, hold Him by 
the feet. He will say to you as he proclaimed the good 



344 Papers for Thoughtful Girls. 

news to the women of old, and made them his messen- 
gers, " I go to my father and your father ; to my God 
and your God." He will add, in the pitiful tenderness 
which brought him down from the high heaven to take 
upon him our pains and penalties, " and where I am, 
there shall also my servant be." 




Cambridge : Stereotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Dec. 2004 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-21 1 1 



% '- 



$fit 



m 



i 



j 



BggtM 



in 

m 

wm 



M iff 






388$ 

BBflHP 

■ -•'••■' 



A 



BSHHEa 






SB£ 



8M 



